The Story of the Western Wing

A scene from a multi-colored woodblock printing album depicting scenes from the play

The Story of the Western Wing (traditional Chinese: 西廂記; simplified Chinese: 西厢记; pinyin: Xīxiāng Jì; Wade–Giles: Hsi-hsiang-chi), also translated as Romance of the Western Chamber, is one of the most famous Chinesedramatic works. It was written by the Yuan dynasty playwright Wang Shifu (王實甫), and set during the Tang dynasty. Known as "China's most popular love comedy,"[1] it is the story of a young couple consummating their love without parental approval, and has been seen both as a "lover's bible" and "potentially lethal," as readers were in danger of pining away under its influence.[2]

The play has twenty-one acts in five parts, it tells the story of a secret love affair between Zhang Sheng, a young scholar, and Cui Yingying, the daughter of a chief minister of the Tang court. The two first meet in a Buddhist monastery. Yingying and her mother have stopped there to rest while escorting the coffin of Yingying's father to their native town. Zhang Sheng falls in love with her immediately, but is prevented from expressing his feelings while Yingying is under her mother's watchful eye, the most he can do is express his love in a poem read aloud behind the wall of the courtyard in which Yingying is lodging.[3]

However, word of Yingying's beauty soon reaches Sun the Flying Tiger, a local bandit, he dispatches ruffians to surround the monastery, in the hopes of taking her as his consort. Yingying's mother agrees that whoever drives the bandits away can have Yingying's hand in marriage, so Zhang Sheng contacts his childhood friend General Du, who is stationed not far away, the general subdues the bandits, and it seems that Zhang Sheng and Cui Yingying are set to be married. However, Yingying's mother begins to regret her rash promise to Zhang Sheng, and takes back her word, with the excuse that Yingying is already betrothed to the son of another high official of the court, the two young lovers are greatly disappointed, and begin to pine away with their unfulfilled love. Fortunately, Yingying's maid, Hong Niang, takes pity on them, and ingeniously arranges to bring them together in a secret union. When Yingying's mother discovers what her daughter has done, she reluctantly consents to a formal marriage on one condition: Zhang must travel to the capital and pass the civil service examination. To the joy of the young lovers, Zhang Sheng proves to be a brilliant scholar, and is appointed to high office, the story thus ends on a happy note, as the two are finally married.[3]

The original story was first told in a literary Chinese short story written by Yuan Zhen during the Tang Dynasty, this version was called The Story of Yingying, or Yingying's Biography. This version differs from the later play in that Zhang Sheng ultimately breaks from Yingying, and does not ask for her hand in marriage, despite the unhappy ending, the story was popular with later writers, and recitative works based on it began accumulating in the centuries that followed. Perhaps bowing to popular sentiment, the ending gradually changed to the happy one seen in the play, the first example of the modified version is an oral performance by Dong Liang of the Jin Dynasty. Wang Shifu's play was closely modeled on this performance.[4]

Illustration by Chen Hongshou, woodblock print, from the 1639 edition published by Zhang Shenzhi[5]

A scene from a multi-colored woodblock printing album depicting scenes from the play, Zhang Junrui’s nocturnal music-making, 1640

A scene from a multi-colored woodblock printing collection depicting scenes from the play, 1640

Due to scenes that unambiguously described Zhang Sheng and Cui Yingying fulfilling their love outside of the bond of marriage, moralists have traditionally considered The Story of the Western Wing to be an indecent, immoral, and licentious work, it was thus placed high on the list of forbidden books. Tang Laihe is reported to have said, "I heard that in the 1590s the performance of the Hsi-hsiang chi...was still forbidden among [good] families." Gui Guang (1613–1673) called the work "a book teaching debauchery." On the other hand, the famous critic Jin Shengtan considered it silly to declare a book containing sex to be immoral, since "If we consider [sex] more carefully, what day is without it? What place is without it? Can we say that because there is [sex] between Heaven and Earth, therefore Heaven and Earth should be abolished?".[6]

Since the appearance of this play in the thirteenth century, it has enjoyed unparalleled popularity.[who?] The play has given rise to innumerable sequels, parodies, and rewritings; it has influenced countless later plays, short stories, and novels and has played a crucial role in the development of drama criticism.

The theme of the drama is an attack on traditional mores, supporting the longing of young people in those days for freedom of marriage, although it follows the timeworn pattern of a gifted scholar and a beautiful lady falling in love at first sight. According to the orthodox viewpoint of Confucian society, love was not supposed to be a basis for marriage, as most marriages were arranged by the parents of the couples, but the happy ending of The Romance of the Western Chamber embodies the aspirations of people for more meaningful and happier lives.

Thus, the biggest difference between The Story of Yingying and The Story of the Western Wing lies in their endings—the former has a sad ending while the latter has a happy ending. What's more,The Romance of the Western Chamber carries a more profound meaning in its conclusion, and directly suggests the ideal that all lovers in the world be settled down in a family union, with a more sharp-cut theme of attacking traditional mores and the traditional marriage system.

Traditional Chinese characters
–
Traditional Chinese characters are Chinese characters in any character set that does not contain newly created characters or character substitutions performed after 1946. They are most commonly the characters in the character sets of Taiwan, of Hong Kong. Currently, a number of overseas Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between both s

3.
A Series of Reading workbook in Traditional Chinese used in some Elementary schools in the Philippines.

Simplified Chinese characters
–
Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters for use in mainland China. Along with traditional Chinese characters, it is one of the two character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the Peoples Republic of China in mainland China has

3.
The first batch of Simplified Characters introduced in 1935 consisted of 324 characters.

Pinyin
–
Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languag

1.
A school slogan asking elementary students to speak Putonghua is annotated with pinyin, but without tonal marks.

2.
In Yiling, Yichang, Hubei, text on road signs appears both in Chinese characters and in Hanyu Pinyin

China
–
China, officially the Peoples Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the worlds most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing, the countrys major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin

Yuan dynasty
–
The Yuan dynasty, officially the Great Yuan, was the empire or ruling dynasty of China established by Kublai Khan, leader of the Mongolian Borjigin clan. His realm was, by point, isolated from the other khanates and controlled most of present-day China and its surrounding areas. Some of the Mongolian Emperors of the Yuan mastered the Chinese langua

Wang Shifu
–
Wang Shifu, courtesy name of Wang Dexin, was a successful Chinese playwright of the Yuan Dynasty. He was born in Dadu, the capital of the Mongol-Yuan Dynasty, there are 14 plays attributed to Wang and only three are extant. His The Story of the Western Wing is one of the most famous Chinese plays and is popular today. It is an amplified zaju, a pop

Tang dynasty
–
The Tang dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. It is generally regarded as a point in Chinese civilization. Its territory, acquired through the campaigns of its early rulers, rivaled that of the Han dynasty. The dynasty was founded by the Lǐ family, who seize

University of California Press
–
University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish books and papers for the faculty of the University of California and its headquarters are located in Oakland, California. It also distributes titles pu

1.
2008 conference booth

Ivory
–
Ivory is a hard, white material from the tusks and teeth of animals, that can be used in art or manufacturing. It consists mainly of dentine ), one of the structures of teeth. The chemical structure of the teeth and tusks of mammals is the same and it has been valued since ancient times for making a range of items, from ivory carvings to false teet

Asian Art Museum of San Francisco
–
The museum owes its origin to a donation to the city of San Francisco by Chicago millionaire Avery Brundage, who was a major collector of Asian art. The Society for Asian Art, incorporated in 1958, was the group that formed specifically to gain Avery Brundages collection, the museum opened in 1966 as a wing of the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum in

Buddhism
–
Buddhism is a religion and dharma that encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and spiritual practices largely based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. Buddhism originated in India sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE, from where it spread through much of Asia, two major extant branches of Buddhism are generally recognized by sch

4.
Ascetic Gautama with his five companions, who later comprised the first Sangha. (Painting in Laotian temple)

Literary Chinese
–
Classical Chinese is a traditional style of written Chinese that evolved from the classical language, making it different from any modern spoken form of Chinese. Literary Chinese was used for almost all formal writing in China until the early 20th century, Literary Chinese is known as kanbun in Japanese, hanmun in Korean, and cổ văn or văn ngôn in

Yuan Zhen
–
Yuan Zhen, courtesy name Weizhi, was a politician of the middle Tang Dynasty, but is more known as an important Chinese writer and poet. In prose literature, Yuan Zhen is particularly known for his work Yingyings Biography, the poetic circle in which Yuan Zhen was involved included Bai Juyi, among others. Politically Yuan Zhen was briefly chancello

1.
Yuan Zhen

The Story of Yingying
–
The Biography of Ying-ying, also translated as the Story of Yingying, by Yuan Zhen, is Tang dynasty chuanqi story. It tells the story of a relationship conflicted between love and duty between a 16-year-old girl and a 21-year-old student and it is considered to be one of the first works of fiction in Chinese literature. Yuan Zhen pioneered psycholo

1.
scene from Story of the Western Wing, an opera inspired by Story of Yingying

Qing Dynasty
–
It was preceded by the Ming dynasty and succeeded by the Republic of China. The Qing multi-cultural empire lasted almost three centuries and formed the base for the modern Chinese state. The dynasty was founded by the Jurchen Aisin Gioro clan in Manchuria, in the late sixteenth century, Nurhaci, originally a Ming vassal, began organizing Banners, m

3.
An Italian map showing the "Kingdom of the Nüzhen " or the " Jin Tartars", who "have occupied and are at present ruling China", north of Liaodong and Korea, published in 1682

4.
Qing era brush container

Chen Hongshou
–
Chen Hongshou, formerly romanized as Chen Hung-shou, was a Chinese painter of the late Ming dynasty. Chen was born in Zhuji, Zhejiang province in 1598, during the Ming dynasty and his courtesy name was Zhanghou, and his pseudonyms were Laolian, Fuchi, Yunmenseng, Huichi, Chiheshang and Huiseng. He once trained under Lan Ying, and was skilled in pai

Manchu language
–
Manchu is a severely endangered Tungusic language spoken in Manchuria, it was the native language of the Manchus and one of the official languages of the Qing dynasty of China. Most Manchus now speak Mandarin Chinese, according to data from UNESCO, there are 10 native speakers of Manchu out of a total of nearly 10 million ethnic Manchus. Manchu lan

4.
"Banjin Inenggi" and Manchu linguistic activity by the government and students in Changchun, 2011

Silent film
–
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. The silent film era lasted from 1895 to 1936, in silent films for entertainment, the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, mime and title cards which contain a written indication of the plot or key dialogue. During silent films, a pianist, the

3.
Lillian Gish, the "First Lady of the American Cinema", was a leading star in the silent era with one of the longest careers, working from 1912 to 1987

4.
Cinématographe Lumière at the Institut Lumière, France. Such cameras had no audio recording devices built into the cameras.

Hou Yao
–
Hou Yao was a pioneering Chinese film director, screenwriter, and film theorist. He wrote and directed films including The Discarded Wife, Romance of the Western Chamber, the first Chinese film shown in Western countries. He wrote Techniques of Writing Shadowplay Scripts, the first theory book on Chinese filmmaking and he founded the Culture Film C

Lost in the Chamber of Love
–
Lost in the Chamber of Love is a TVB costume drama series released overseas in December 2004 and broadcast on TVB Jade Channel in February 2005. Cheung Kwan-Sui and Hung Leung each picks up one half of a matching jade at a lantern fair, however, they do not meet each other that night. At the same fair, Sui saves the Governors daughter Chui Ang-Ang

1.
Lost in the Chamber of Love 西廂奇緣

Myolie Wu
–
Myolie Wu Hang-yee, is a Hong Kong actress and singer. Born in Hong Kong with Guangdong Taishan ancestry, she is signed under for the Hong Kong TVB television station and she has twice won My Favorite TV Actress at the Astro Favorites Awards Ceremony. By summer of 2015, Myolie left TVB to explore new avenues, in her schooling days, Myolie received

1.
Myolie Wu in 2007

Michelle Ye
–
Michelle Ye or Ye Xuan is a Chinese actress and producer. In 1999, she won the Miss Chinese International competition, Ye then signed a contract with TVB from 1999 to 2005. After she left TVB, She signed with Rich & Famous Talent Management Group Limited to pursue a movie career, Ye is fluent in Cantonese, English, and Mandarin. She immigrated to t

1.
Michelle Ye

Emperor Dezong of Tang
–
Emperor Dezong of Tang, personal name Li Kuo, was an emperor of the Chinese Tang Dynasty and the oldest son of his father Emperor Daizong. His reign of 26 years was the third longest in the Tang dynasty, Emperor Dezong started out as a diligent and frugal emperor and he tried to reform the governmental finances by introducing new tax laws. His atte

The Orphan of Zhao
–
The Orphan of Zhao is a Chinese play from the Yuan era, attributed to the 13th-century dramatist Ji Junxiang. The play has as its full name The Great Revenge of the Orphan of Zhao, the play is classified in the zaju genre of dramas. It revolves around the theme of revenge. The play is divided in six parts, comprising five acts and a wedge and it co

1.
A page of Prémare's translation in French

The China Quarterly
–
The China Quarterly is a British peer-reviewed academic journal that was established in 1960 and focuses on all aspects of contemporary Mainland China and Taiwan. It covers a range of subjects including anthropology, business, literature and the arts, economics, geography, history, international affairs, law, politics, each issue contains articles

1.
The China Quarterly

JSTOR
–
JSTOR is a digital library founded in 1995. Originally containing digitized back issues of journals, it now also includes books and primary sources. It provides full-text searches of almost 2,000 journals, more than 8,000 institutions in more than 160 countries have access to JSTOR, most access is by subscription, but some older public domain conte

1.
The JSTOR front page

Wikisource
–
Wikisource is an online digital library of free content textual sources on a wiki, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikisource is the name of the project as a whole and the name for each instance of that project, the projects aims are to host all forms of free text, in many languages, and translations. Originally conceived as an archive to sto

1.
The original Wikisource logo

2.
Screenshot of wikisource.org home page

3.
::: Original text

4.
::: Action of the modernizing tool

Project Gutenberg
–
Project Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks. It was founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital library, most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books. The project tries to make these as free as possible, in long

History of the Yuan dynasty
–
The Yuan dynasty was the ruling dynasty of China and Mongolia established by Kublai Khan and a khanate of the Mongol Empire. Genghis Khan united the Mongol and Turkic tribes of the steppes and he and his successors expanded the Mongol Empire across Asia. Under the reign of Genghis third son, Ögedei Khan, the Mongols destroyed the weakened Jin dynas

Division of the Mongol Empire
–
The four khanates each pursued their own separate interests and objectives, and fell at different times. Möngke Khans brother Hulagu Khan broke off his military advance into Syria, withdrawing the bulk of his forces to Mughan. In 1260, the Mamluks advanced from Egypt, being allowed to camp and resupply near the Christian stronghold of Acre, the Mon

Toluid Civil War
–
The Toluid Civil War was fought between Kublai Khan and his younger brother, Ariq Böke, from 1260 to 1264. Möngke Khan died in 1259 with no declared successor, precipitating infighting between members of the Tolui family line for the title of Great Khan that escalated to a civil war. The Toluid Civil War, and the wars that followed it, weakened the

Mongol invasion of China
–
The Mongol invasion of China was a series of major military efforts by the Mongols to invade China proper. It spanned six decades in the 13th century and involved the defeat of the Jin dynasty, Western Xia, the Dali Kingdom, the Mongol Empire under Genghis Khan started the conquest with small-scale raids into Western Xia in 1205 and 1207. By 1279,

1.
One of major battles at the Badger Mouth during the Mongol–Jin War.

Mongol conquest of the Song dynasty
–
The Mongol conquest of the Song dynasty under Kublai Khan was the final step for the Mongols to rule the whole of China under the Yuan dynasty. It is also considered the Mongol Empires last great military achievement, although Genghis Khan refused, on his death in 1227 he bequeathed a plan to attack the Jin capital by passing through Song territory

Battle of Xiangyang
–
The Battle of Xiangyang was a key battle between the invading Mongols of the Yuan dynasty and Southern Song forces from AD1267 to 1273. After the battle, the victorious Yuan forces pushed farther into the Song heartland, previously for 30 years, the Song dynasty managed to handle several major offensives by the Mongol Empire. The strategic signific

1.
Illustration of a Hinged Counterweight Trebuchet Prepped for Transit from the Wujing Zongyao, late Ming (Wanli Period) edition

Battle of Yamen
–
The naval Battle of Yamen took place on 19 March 1279 and is considered to be the last stand of the Song dynasty against the invading Mongol Yuan dynasty. Although outnumbered 10,1, the Yuan navy delivered a crushing tactical and strategic victory, today, the battle site is located at Yamen, in Xinhui County, Jiangmen City, Guangdong Province, Chin

Mongol invasions of Japan
–
The Mongol invasions of Japan, which took place in 1274 and 1281, were major military efforts undertaken by Kublai Khan to conquer the Japanese archipelago after the submission of Goryeo to vassaldom. Ultimately a failure, the attempts are of macro-historical importance because they set a limit on Mongol expansion. The Mongol invasions are consider

Mongol invasions of Vietnam
–
Although ultimately a failure for the Mongols, both the Trần dynasty and Champa decided to accept the nominal supremacy of the Yuan dynasty in order to avoid further conflicts. By the 1250s, the Mongol Empire controlled large amounts of Eurasia including much of Eastern Europe, Anatolia, North China, Mongolia, Manchuria, Central Asia, Tibet, möngke

First Mongol invasion of Burma
–
The first Mongol invasions of Burma were a series of military conflicts between Kublai Khans Yuan dynasty, division of the Mongol Empire, and the Pagan Empire that took place between 1277 and 1287. The invasions toppled the 250-year-old Pagan Empire, and the Mongol army seized Pagan territories in present-day Dehong, Yunnan, the invasions ushered i

1.
Dali Kingdom c. mid-12th century

2.
Pagan plains today

3.
Mongol mounted archer

4.
Mongol warrior on horseback, preparing a mounted archery shot.

1344 Yellow River flood

1.
A map of China depicting the Yellow River's new path, after it stabilized following Li Xing 's public works during the 1494 flood.

Red Turban Rebellion
–
The Red Turban Rebellion was an uprising influenced by the White Lotus Society members that, between 1351 and 1368, targeted the ruling Yuan dynasty of China, eventually leading to its overthrow. Since the 1340s, the Mongol Yuan dynasty was experiencing problems, the Yellow River flooded constantly, and other natural disasters also occurred. At the

1.
The advance of the Red Turban rebels from 1359 to 1361

2.
Shaolin monk fighting against the Red Turban rebels

Battle of Lake Poyang
–
The naval battle of Lake Poyang took place 30 August –4 October 1363 and was one of the final battles fought in the fall of Chinas Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. There were at time a number of rebel groups who sought to topple the reigning dynasty. The relieving navy of the Ming, under Zhu Yuanzhang, met the Nanchang-besieging Han navy, commanded by Chen

Ispah rebellion
–
The Ispah rebellion was a series of civil wars occurring in the middle of 14th century in Fujian under the Yuan dynasty. The term Ispah might derive from the Persian word سپاه, meaning army or Sepoy, thus, the rebellion is also known as the Persian Sepoy rebellion in Chinese documents. Under Mongol rule, the number of Arab and Persian Muslims resid

1.
The situation in Xinghua in 1362 during the Ispah Rebellion.

List of emperors of the Yuan dynasty

1.
Taizu (太祖 Tàizǔ)

2.
Ruizong (睿宗 Ruìzōng)

3.
Taizong (太宗 Tàizōng)

4.
Shizu (世祖 Shìzǔ)

Chinese emperors family tree (late)
–
This is a family tree of Chinese emperors from the Mongol conquest of 1279 to end of the Qing dynasty in 1912. Chinese emperors family tree → Chinese emperors family tree → Chinese emperors family tree → Chinese emperors family tree The following is the Yuan dynasty family tree, genghis Khan founded the Mongol Empire in 1206. The empire became spli

Imperial Preceptor
–
The Imperial Preceptor, or Dishi was a high title and powerful post created by Kublai Khan, founder of the Yuan dynasty. It was established as part of Mongol patronage of Tibetan Buddhism, the title was originally created as the State Preceptor or Guoshi in 1260, the first year of Kublai Khans enthronement. In that year he appointed the Sakya lama

Zhongshu Sheng
–
As one of the three departments, it was the main policy-formulating agency that was responsible for proposing and drafting all imperial decrees. The Song dynasty modified that tripartite division of executive agencies in the central government, under the Song, as also under the Liao and Jin dynasties, those organs exercised much of the executive au

1.
The Central Region within the Yuan dynasty directly governed by the Central Secretariat.

Bureau of Buddhist and Tibetan Affairs

1.
The region under the administration of the Bureau of Buddhist and Tibetan Affairs (Xuanzheng Yuan) within the Yuan dynasty.

Administrative divisions of the Yuan dynasty
–
The Yuan dynasty was a vast empire founded by Mongol leader Kublai Khan in China. In addition, the Yuan emperors held nominal suzerainty over the western Mongol khanates, the most important part of the Yuan Empire was the Central Region, which covered the region of the Yuan capital Khanbaliq. The Central Region consisted of present-day Hebei, Shand

1.
Administrative divisions of the Yuan dynasty.

Yuan dynasty in Inner Asia
–
The Yuan dynasty in Inner Asia was the domination of the Yuan dynasty in Inner Asia in the 13th and the 14th centuries. Actual Yuan rule extended to Manchuria, Mongolia, the Tibetan Plateau, people from these Inner Asian regions other than the Mongols usually belonged to the Semu class. Manchuria was originally ruled by the Jurchen Jin dynasty befo

1.
Manchuria within the Yuan dynasty.

2.
Yuan dynasty, c. 1294.

3.
Mongolia within the Yuan dynasty.

4.
Tibet within the Yuan dynasty.

Mongolia under Yuan rule
–
The Yuan dynasty ruled over the Mongolian steppe, including both Inner and Outer Mongolia as well as part of southern Siberia, for roughly a century between 1271 and 1368. The Mongols came from the Mongolian steppe, and Karakorum was the capital of the Mongol Empire until 1260, during the Toluid Civil War, Mongolia was controlled by Ariq Böke, a yo

3.
The Tumens of Mongolia Proper and vassal states of the Mongol Empire by 1400

4.
Navaanneren, Minister of the Interior, who along with the 23rd Tushiyetu Khan Dorjsurenkhoroljav (1908–1937) was the last of the Borjigin with the title of Khan in Mongolia. He was executed during the great purges of 1937.

Khanbaliq

1.
Khanbaliq

3.
A sculpture of a lion with three cubs from Khanbaliq, discovered beneath the Ming-era city wall and now on display at the Beijing Stone Carving Museum

Shangdu

2.
Even though Matteo Ricci and Bento de Góis had already proven that Cathay is simply another name for China, the English cartographer John Speed in 1626 continued the tradition of showing "Cathaya, the Chief Kingdome of Great Cam " to the northeast of China. On his map, he placed Xandu east of the "Cathayan metropolis" Cambalu

1.
The Tumens of Mongolia Proper and relict states of the Mongol Empire by 1500

2.
The Northern Yuan at its greatest extent

3.
Temple at Erdene Zuu monastery established by Abtai Khan in the Khalkha heartland in the 16th century.

4.
"Tsogt Taij's White House (White Castle)" was built in 1601.

LIST OF IMAGES

1.
Traditional Chinese characters
–
Traditional Chinese characters are Chinese characters in any character set that does not contain newly created characters or character substitutions performed after 1946. They are most commonly the characters in the character sets of Taiwan, of Hong Kong. Currently, a number of overseas Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between both sets. In contrast, simplified Chinese characters are used in mainland China, Singapore, the debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters has been a long-running issue among Chinese communities. Although simplified characters are taught and endorsed by the government of Mainland China, Traditional characters are used informally in regions in China primarily in handwriting and also used for inscriptions and religious text. They are often retained in logos or graphics to evoke yesteryear, nonetheless, the vast majority of media and communications in China is dominated by simplified characters. Taiwan has never adopted Simplified Chinese characters since it is ruled by the Republic of China, the use of simplified characters in official documents is even prohibited by the government in Taiwan. Simplified characters are not well understood in general, although some stroke simplifications that have incorporated into Simplified Chinese are in common use in handwriting. For example, while the name of Taiwan is written as 臺灣, similarly, in Hong Kong and Macau, Traditional Chinese has been the legal written form since colonial times. In recent years, because of the influx of mainland Chinese tourists, today, even government websites use simplified Chinese, as they answer to the Beijing government. This has led to concerns by residents to protect their local heritage. In Southeast Asia, the Chinese Filipino community continues to be one of the most conservative regarding simplification, while major public universities are teaching simplified characters, many well-established Chinese schools still use traditional characters. Publications like the Chinese Commercial News, World News, and United Daily News still use traditional characters, on the other hand, the Philippine Chinese Daily uses simplified. Aside from local newspapers, magazines from Hong Kong, such as the Yazhou Zhoukan, are found in some bookstores. In case of film or television subtitles on DVD, the Chinese dub that is used in Philippines is the same as the one used in Taiwan and this is because the DVDs belongs to DVD Region Code 3. Hence, most of the subtitles are in Traditional Characters, overseas Chinese in the United States have long used traditional characters. A major influx of Chinese immigrants to the United States occurred during the half of the 19th century. Therefore, the majority of Chinese language signage in the United States, including street signs, Traditional Chinese characters are called several different names within the Chinese-speaking world

Traditional Chinese characters
–
Chinese characters
Traditional Chinese characters
–
Job announcement in a Filipino Chinese daily newspaper written in Traditional Chinese characters.
Traditional Chinese characters
–
A Series of Reading workbook in Traditional Chinese used in some Elementary schools in the Philippines.

2.
Simplified Chinese characters
–
Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters for use in mainland China. Along with traditional Chinese characters, it is one of the two character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the Peoples Republic of China in mainland China has promoted them for use in printing since the 1950s and 1960s in an attempt to increase literacy and they are officially used in the Peoples Republic of China and Singapore. Traditional Chinese characters are used in Hong Kong, Macau. Overseas Chinese communities generally tend to use traditional characters, Simplified Chinese characters may be referred to by their official name above or colloquially. Strictly, the latter refers to simplifications of character structure or body, character forms that have existed for thousands of years alongside regular, Simplified character forms were created by decreasing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizable proportion of traditional Chinese characters. Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms embodying graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms, some characters were simplified by applying regular rules, for example, by replacing all occurrences of a certain component with a simplified version of the component. Variant characters with the pronunciation and identical meaning were reduced to a single standardized character. Finally, many characters were left untouched by simplification, and are identical between the traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies. Some simplified characters are very dissimilar to and unpredictably different from traditional characters and this often leads opponents not well-versed in the method of simplification to conclude that the overall process of character simplification is also arbitrary. In reality, the methods and rules of simplification are few, on the other hand, proponents of simplification often flaunt a few choice simplified characters as ingenious inventions, when in fact these have existed for hundreds of years as ancient variants. However, the Chinese government never officially dropped its goal of further simplification in the future, in August 2009, the PRC began collecting public comments for a modified list of simplified characters. The new Table of General Standard Chinese Characters consisting of 8,105 characters was promulgated by the State Council of the Peoples Republic of China on June 5,2013, cursive written text almost always includes character simplification. Simplified forms used in print have always existed, they date back to as early as the Qin dynasty, One of the earliest proponents of character simplification was Lubi Kui, who proposed in 1909 that simplified characters should be used in education. In the years following the May Fourth Movement in 1919, many anti-imperialist Chinese intellectuals sought ways to modernise China, Traditional culture and values such as Confucianism were challenged. Soon, people in the Movement started to cite the traditional Chinese writing system as an obstacle in modernising China and it was suggested that the Chinese writing system should be either simplified or completely abolished. Fu Sinian, a leader of the May Fourth Movement, called Chinese characters the writing of ox-demons, lu Xun, a renowned Chinese author in the 20th century, stated that, If Chinese characters are not destroyed, then China will die. Recent commentators have claimed that Chinese characters were blamed for the problems in China during that time

3.
Pinyin
–
Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks

Pinyin
–
A school slogan asking elementary students to speak Putonghua is annotated with pinyin, but without tonal marks.
Pinyin
–
In Yiling, Yichang, Hubei, text on road signs appears both in Chinese characters and in Hanyu Pinyin

4.
China
–
China, officially the Peoples Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the worlds most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing, the countrys major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a power and a major regional power within Asia. Chinas landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes, the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third and sixth longest in the world, respectively, Chinas coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China emerged as one of the worlds earliest civilizations in the basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, Chinas political system was based on hereditary monarchies known as dynasties, in 1912, the Republic of China replaced the last dynasty and ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949, when it was defeated by the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. The Communist Party established the Peoples Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, both the ROC and PRC continue to claim to be the legitimate government of all China, though the latter has more recognition in the world and controls more territory. China had the largest economy in the world for much of the last two years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the introduction of reforms in 1978, China has become one of the worlds fastest-growing major economies. As of 2016, it is the worlds second-largest economy by nominal GDP, China is also the worlds largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a nuclear weapons state and has the worlds largest standing army. The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the U. N. Security Council in 1971. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BCIM, the English name China is first attested in Richard Edens 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The demonym, that is, the name for the people, Portuguese China is thought to derive from Persian Chīn, and perhaps ultimately from Sanskrit Cīna. Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata, there are, however, other suggestions for the derivation of China. The official name of the state is the Peoples Republic of China. The shorter form is China Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó and it was then applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and then to Chinas Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing

5.
Yuan dynasty
–
The Yuan dynasty, officially the Great Yuan, was the empire or ruling dynasty of China established by Kublai Khan, leader of the Mongolian Borjigin clan. His realm was, by point, isolated from the other khanates and controlled most of present-day China and its surrounding areas. Some of the Mongolian Emperors of the Yuan mastered the Chinese language, while others used their native language. The Yuan dynasty is considered both a successor to the Mongol Empire and an imperial Chinese dynasty and it was the khanate ruled by the successors of Möngke Khan after the division of the Mongol Empire. In official Chinese histories, the Yuan dynasty bore the Mandate of Heaven, following the Song dynasty, the dynasty was established by Kublai Khan, yet he placed his grandfather Genghis Khan on the imperial records as the official founder of the dynasty as Taizu. In addition to Emperor of China, Kublai Khan also claimed the title of Great Khan, supreme over the other khanates, the Chagatai, the Golden Horde. As such, the Yuan was also referred to as the Empire of the Great Khan. However, while the claim of supremacy by the Yuan emperors was at times recognized by the khans, their subservience was nominal. In 1271, Kublai Khan imposed the name Great Yuan, establishing the Yuan dynasty, dà Yuán is from the clause 大哉乾元 in the Commentaries on the Classic of Changes section regarding Qián. The counterpart in Mongolian language was Dai Ön Ulus, also rendered as Ikh Yuan Üls or Yekhe Yuan Ulus, in Mongolian, Dai Ön is often used in conjunction with the Yeke Mongghul Ulus, resulting in Dai Ön Yeke Mongghul Ulus, meaning Great Mongol State. Nevertheless, both terms can refer to the khanate within the Mongol Empire directly ruled by Great Khans before the actual establishment of the Yuan dynasty by Kublai Khan in 1271. Genghis Khan united the Mongol and Turkic tribes of the steppes and he and his successors expanded the Mongol empire across Asia. Under the reign of Genghis third son, Ögedei Khan, the Mongols destroyed the weakened Jin dynasty in 1234, Ögedei offered his nephew Kublai a position in Xingzhou, Hebei. Kublai was unable to read Chinese but had several Han Chinese teachers attached to him since his early years by his mother Sorghaghtani and he sought the counsel of Chinese Buddhist and Confucian advisers. Möngke Khan succeeded Ögedeis son, Güyük, as Great Khan in 1251 and he granted his brother Kublai control over Mongol held territories in China. Kublai built schools for Confucian scholars, issued paper money, revived Chinese rituals and he adopted as his capital city Kaiping in Inner Mongolia, later renamed Shangdu. Many Han Chinese and Khitan defected to the Mongols to fight against the Jin, two Han Chinese leaders, Shi Tianze, Liu Heima, and the Khitan Xiao Zhala defected and commanded the 3 Tumens in the Mongol army. Liu Heima and Shi Tianze served Ogödei Khan, Liu Heima and Shi Tianxiang led armies against Western Xia for the Mongols

6.
Wang Shifu
–
Wang Shifu, courtesy name of Wang Dexin, was a successful Chinese playwright of the Yuan Dynasty. He was born in Dadu, the capital of the Mongol-Yuan Dynasty, there are 14 plays attributed to Wang and only three are extant. His The Story of the Western Wing is one of the most famous Chinese plays and is popular today. It is an amplified zaju, a popular theatrical form. Wang, Shifu, Edited and Translated with an Introduction by Stephen H, west and Wilt L. Idema, with a Study of Its Woodblock Illustrations by Yao Dajuin. The Moon and the Zither, The Story of the Western Wing, berkeley, University of California Press,1991. Works by Wang Shifu at Project Gutenberg Works by or about Wang Shifu at Internet Archive

7.
Tang dynasty
–
The Tang dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. It is generally regarded as a point in Chinese civilization. Its territory, acquired through the campaigns of its early rulers, rivaled that of the Han dynasty. The dynasty was founded by the Lǐ family, who seized power during the decline, the dynasty was briefly interrupted when Empress Wu Zetian seized the throne, proclaiming the Second Zhou dynasty and becoming the only Chinese empress regnant. In two censuses of the 7th and 8th centuries, the Tang records estimated the population by number of registered households at about 50 million people. Various kingdoms and states paid tribute to the Tang court, while the Tang also conquered or subdued several regions which it controlled through a protectorate system. Besides political hegemony, the Tang also exerted a powerful influence over neighboring states such as those in Korea, Japan. Like the previous Sui dynasty, the Tang dynasty maintained a service system by recruiting scholar-officials through standardized examinations and recommendations to office. This civil order was undermined by the rise of military governors known as jiedushi during the 9th century. Chinese culture flourished and further matured during the Tang era, it is considered the greatest age for Chinese poetry. Two of Chinas most famous poets, Li Bai and Du Fu, belonged to this age, as did many famous painters such as Han Gan, Zhang Xuan, there was a rich variety of historical literature compiled by scholars, as well as encyclopedias and geographical works. The adoption of the title Tängri Qaghan by the Tang Emperor Taizong in addition to his title as emperor was eastern Asias first simultaneous kingship, there were many notable innovations during the Tang, including the development of woodblock printing. Buddhism became an influence in Chinese culture, with native Chinese sects gaining prominence. However, Buddhism would later be persecuted by the state, subsequently declining in influence, although the dynasty and central government were in decline by the 9th century, art and culture continued to flourish. This family was known as the Longxi Li lineage, which includes the Tang poet Li Bai, the Tang Emperors also had Xianbei maternal ancestry, from Emperor Gaozu of Tangs Xianbei mother Duchess Dugu. He had prestige and military experience, and was a first cousin of Emperor Yang of Sui, Li Yuan rose in rebellion in 617, along with his son and his equally militant daughter Princess Pingyang, who raised and commanded her own troops. In winter 617, Li Yuan occupied Changan, relegated Emperor Yang to the position of Taishang Huang or retired emperor, and acted as regent to the puppet child-emperor, Emperor Gong of Sui. On the news of Emperor Yangs murder by General Yuwen Huaji on June 18,618, Li Yuan declared himself the emperor of a new dynasty, the Tang

8.
University of California Press
–
University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish books and papers for the faculty of the University of California and its headquarters are located in Oakland, California. It also distributes titles published by the Huntington Library, Watershed Media, each year it publishes approximately 180 new books and 31 journals in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences and keeps about 3,500 book titles in print. The Press commissioned as its corporate typeface University of California Old Style from type designer Frederic Goudy from 1936-8, finley Joan of Arc, The Image of Female Heroism, Marina Warner Strong Democracy, Participatory Politics for a New Age, Benjamin R. These titles were selected for their merit and for their illumination of California history. The Ford by Mary Austin Thieves Market by A. I, by Al Young Official University of California Press website California Digital Library - University of California Libraries Free Online - UC Press E-Books Collection Mark Twain Project Online

University of California Press
–
2008 conference booth

9.
Ivory
–
Ivory is a hard, white material from the tusks and teeth of animals, that can be used in art or manufacturing. It consists mainly of dentine ), one of the structures of teeth. The chemical structure of the teeth and tusks of mammals is the same and it has been valued since ancient times for making a range of items, from ivory carvings to false teeth, fans, and dominoes. Elephant ivory is the most important source, but ivory from mammoth, walrus, hippopotamus, sperm whale, killer whale, narwhal, elk also have two ivory teeth, which are believed to be the remnants of tusks from their ancestors. The national and international trade in ivory of threatened species such as African and Asian elephants is illegal, the word ivory ultimately derives from the ancient Egyptian âb, âbu, through the Latin ebor- or ebur. Both the Greek and Roman civilizations practiced ivory carving to make large quantities of high value works of art, precious religious objects, Ivory was often used to form the white of the eyes of statues. There is some evidence of either whale or walrus ivory used by the ancient Irish, solinus, a Roman writer in the 3rd century claimed that the Celtic peoples in Ireland would decorate their sword-hilts with the teeth of beasts that swim in the sea. Adomnan of Iona wrote a story about St Columba giving a sword decorated with carved ivory as a gift that a penitent would bring to his master so he could redeem himself from slavery. The Syrian and North African elephant populations were reduced to extinction, the Chinese have long valued ivory for both art and utilitarian objects. Southeast Asian kingdoms included tusks of the Indian elephant in their annual tribute caravans to China, Chinese craftsmen carved ivory to make everything from images of deities to the pipe stems and end pieces of opium pipes. The Buddhist cultures of Southeast Asia, including Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, Ivory was prized for containers due to its ability to keep an airtight seal. It was also carved into elaborate seals utilized by officials to sign documents. In Southeast Asian countries, where Muslim Malay peoples live, such as Malaysia, Indonesia, in the Philippines, ivory was also used to craft the faces and hands of Catholic icons and images of saints prevalent in the Santero culture. Tooth and tusk ivory can be carved into a vast variety of shapes, examples of modern carved ivory objects are okimono, netsukes, jewelry, flatware handles, furniture inlays, and piano keys. Additionally, warthog tusks, and teeth from sperm whales, orcas and hippos can also be scrimshawed or superficially carved, Ivory usage in the last thirty years has moved towards mass production of souvenirs and jewelry. In Japan, the increase in wealth sparked consumption of solid ivory hanko – name seals – which before this time had made of wood. Prior to the introduction of plastics, ivory had many ornamental and practical uses and it was formerly used to make cutlery handles, billiard balls, piano keys, Scottish bagpipes, buttons and a wide range of ornamental items. Ivory can be taken from dead animals – however, most ivory came from elephants that were killed for their tusks, for example, in 1930 to acquire 40 tons of ivory required the killing of approximately 700 elephants

10.
Asian Art Museum of San Francisco
–
The museum owes its origin to a donation to the city of San Francisco by Chicago millionaire Avery Brundage, who was a major collector of Asian art. The Society for Asian Art, incorporated in 1958, was the group that formed specifically to gain Avery Brundages collection, the museum opened in 1966 as a wing of the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum in Golden Gate Park. Brundage continued to make donations to the museum, including the bequest of all his personal collection of Asian art on his death in 1975. In total, Brundage donated more than 7,700 Asian art objects to San Francisco, until 2003, the museum shared a space with the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. As the museum’s collection grew, the facilities in Golden Gate Park were no longer sufficient to display or even house the collection, in 1987 Mayor Dianne Feinstein proposed a plan to revitalize Civic Center that included relocating the museum to the Main Library. In 1995, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Chong-Moon Lee made a $15 million donation to launch the campaign for a new building for the museum. Lord Cultural Resources, a professional practice, was also commissioned to undertake a three-part sequence of planning studies for the relocation of the Museum. The old Main library was a Beaux Arts-style building designed by George Kelham in 1917, the new $160.5 million project, designed by Gae Aulenti, introduced an indoor sky-lit court to provide a dramatic central core to the museum. Removing some interior walls, Aulenti created a sense of openness to facilitate visitor movement, the new 185, 000-square-foot museum increased the exhibition space by approximately 75 percent compared to the former Golden Gate Park location. In October 2011, the museum launched a new identity, designed by the branding agency Wolff Olins, the logo is an upside down A, representing the idea of approaching Asian art from a new perspective. In March,2016, the announced that it will build an additional new pavilion to its current San Francisco Civic Center Building. The new pavilion will sit atop an existing, lower-level wing on the museum’s Hyde Street side, the collection has approximately 18,000 works of art and artifacts from all major Asian countries and traditions, some of which are as much as 6,000 years old. Galleries are devoted to the arts of South Asia, Iran and Central Asia, Southeast Asia, there are 2,500 works on display in the permanent collection. A Japanese tea house is displayed on the exhibition floor of the museum. This teahouse was built in Kyoto, disassembled, shipped to San Francisco, the Tea House was designed by architect Osamu Sato as a functioning teahouse, as well as a display case. It is a three and three-quarters mat room, 49-Mile Scenic Drive List of museums with major collections of Asian art Asian Art Museum official website

Asian Art Museum of San Francisco
–
Asian Art Museum of San Francisco
Asian Art Museum of San Francisco
–
Green Tea in Tetsubin at the café
Asian Art Museum of San Francisco
–
Tibetan drawing of Mahakala, in the exhibit halls
Asian Art Museum of San Francisco
–
12th-century Cambodian sculpture of Buddha

11.
Buddhism
–
Buddhism is a religion and dharma that encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and spiritual practices largely based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. Buddhism originated in India sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE, from where it spread through much of Asia, two major extant branches of Buddhism are generally recognized by scholars, Theravada and Mahayana. Buddhism is the worlds fourth-largest religion, with over 500 million followers or 7% of the global population, Buddhist schools vary on the exact nature of the path to liberation, the importance and canonicity of various teachings and scriptures, and especially their respective practices. In Theravada the ultimate goal is the attainment of the state of Nirvana, achieved by practicing the Noble Eightfold Path, thus escaping what is seen as a cycle of suffering. Theravada has a following in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. Mahayana, which includes the traditions of Pure Land, Zen, Nichiren Buddhism, Shingon, rather than Nirvana, Mahayana instead aspires to Buddhahood via the bodhisattva path, a state wherein one remains in the cycle of rebirth to help other beings reach awakening. Vajrayana, a body of teachings attributed to Indian siddhas, may be viewed as a branch or merely a part of Mahayana. Tibetan Buddhism, which preserves the Vajrayana teachings of eighth century India, is practiced in regions surrounding the Himalayas, Tibetan Buddhism aspires to Buddhahood or rainbow body. Buddhism is an Indian religion attributed to the teachings of Buddha, the details of Buddhas life are mentioned in many early Buddhist texts but are inconsistent, his social background and life details are difficult to prove, the precise dates uncertain. Some hagiographic legends state that his father was a king named Suddhodana, his mother queen Maya, and he was born in Lumbini gardens. Some of the stories about Buddha, his life, his teachings, Buddha was moved by the innate suffering of humanity. He meditated on this alone for a period of time, in various ways including asceticism, on the nature of suffering. He famously sat in meditation under a Ficus religiosa tree now called the Bodhi Tree in the town of Bodh Gaya in Gangetic plains region of South Asia. He reached enlightenment, discovering what Buddhists call the Middle Way, as an enlightened being, he attracted followers and founded a Sangha. Now, as the Buddha, he spent the rest of his teaching the Dharma he had discovered. Dukkha is a concept of Buddhism and part of its Four Noble Truths doctrine. It can be translated as incapable of satisfying, the unsatisfactory nature, the Four Truths express the basic orientation of Buddhism, we crave and cling to impermanent states and things, which is dukkha, incapable of satisfying and painful. This keeps us caught in saṃsāra, the cycle of repeated rebirth, dukkha

12.
Literary Chinese
–
Classical Chinese is a traditional style of written Chinese that evolved from the classical language, making it different from any modern spoken form of Chinese. Literary Chinese was used for almost all formal writing in China until the early 20th century, Literary Chinese is known as kanbun in Japanese, hanmun in Korean, and cổ văn or văn ngôn in Vietnamese. It is often referred to as Classical Chinese, but sinologists generally distinguish it from the language of the early period. During this period the dialects of China became more and more disparate and this situation, the use of Literary Chinese throughout the Chinese cultural sphere despite the existence of disparate regional vernaculars, is called diglossia. It can be compared to the position of Classical Arabic relative to the various regional vernaculars in Arab lands, or of Latin in medieval Europe. The Romance languages continued to evolve, influencing Latin texts of the period, so that by the Middle Ages. Christian missionaries coined the term Wen-li for Literary Chinese, though composed from Chinese roots, this term was never used in that sense in Chinese, and was rejected by non-missionary sinologues. Chinese characters are not alphabetic and only palely reflect sound changes, the tentative reconstruction of Old Chinese is an endeavor only a few centuries old. With the progress of time, every dynasty has updated and modified the official Phonology Dictionary, by the time of the Yuan Dynasty and Ming Dynasty, the Phonology Dictionary was based on early Mandarin. In practice, all varieties of Chinese combine these two extremes, Japanese, Korean, or Vietnamese readers of Classical Chinese use systems of pronunciation specific to their own languages. Poetry and other rhyme-based writing thus becomes less coherent than the reading must have been. However, some modern Chinese varieties have certain characteristics that are closer to the older pronunciations than others. Another phenomenon that is common in reading Classical Chinese is homophony and it was written to show how Classical Chinese has become an impractical language for speakers of modern Chinese because Classical Chinese when spoken aloud is largely incomprehensible. However, such homophones are far more common in Literary Chinese than in English, romanizations have been devised giving distinct spellings for the words of Classical Chinese, together with rules for pronunciation in various modern varieties. However none of these systems has seen extensive use, an essay in Classical Chinese, for example, might use half as many Chinese characters as in vernacular Chinese to relate the same content. In terms of conciseness and compactness, Classical Chinese rarely uses words composed of two Chinese characters, nearly all words are of one syllable only and this phenomenon exists, in part, because polysyllabic words evolved in Chinese to disambiguate homophones that result from sound changes. Because Classical Chinese is based on the examples of ancient Chinese literature. Classical Chinese has more pronouns compared to the modern vernacular, in particular, whereas Mandarin has one general character to refer to the first-person pronoun, Literary Chinese has several, many of which are used as part of honorific language

13.
Yuan Zhen
–
Yuan Zhen, courtesy name Weizhi, was a politician of the middle Tang Dynasty, but is more known as an important Chinese writer and poet. In prose literature, Yuan Zhen is particularly known for his work Yingyings Biography, the poetic circle in which Yuan Zhen was involved included Bai Juyi, among others. Politically Yuan Zhen was briefly chancellor, during the reign of Emperor Muzong, a native of Luoyang, Yuan Zhen was a descendant of Northern Weis imperial family. He lost his father at the age of seven and moved to Fengxiang, near todays Baoji, Yuan began his writings at the age of fifteen. He was a member of Bai Juyis literary circle and a key figure in the ancient literature revival and he was a friend of Bai Juyi and also of Xue Tao, a courtesan and famous poet who might have been his lover. Bai Juyi and Yuan Zhen made a Green Mountain pact to retire together as Taoist recluses once they had accumulated enough funds, in 813, Yuan wrote a grave inscription for Du Fu, which contains some of the earliest known praise for his predecessors works. Yuan Zhen was born in 779, around the time of Emperor Dezongs ascension to the throne and he was a 10th-generation descendant of Tuoba Shiyijian, the grandfather of Northern Weis founder Emperor Daowu, who was posthumously honored Emperor Zhaocheng after Northern Weis founding. Yuan Zhens male ancestor line was renamed Yuan, from Tuoba, subsequently ancestors of Yuan Zhens served as officials of Sui Dynasty and Tang Dynasty. His grandfather Yuan Fei served as a county secretary general, while his father Yuan Kuan served as an official at the ministry of justice. Yuan Kuan died when Yuan Zhen was seven, and Yuan Zhen was raised by his mother Lady Zheng, as the household was poor, she did not send Yuan Zhen to school, but taught him to read and write herself. It was said that Yuan became capable of writing at age eight, at age 23, he was made a copyeditor at the Palace Library. As a result, Yuan was made You Shiyi, an advisor at the legislative bureau of government. Yuan had a personality, and after being put into an advisorial post. Yuan further submitted proposals involving the defense of the borders with Tufan. Emperor Xianzong, in response, summoned him and requested opinions on strategies to take there, Yuan subsequently left governmental service for some time while observing a mourning period after his mothers death. Once the mourning period was over, he was recalled to service, to serve as Jiancha Yushi. As a result, the seven prefectural prefects who served under Yan were all punished, meanwhile, when the mayor of Henan Municipality, Fang Shi, was accused of improper conduct, Yuan issued an order suspending Fang from office pending investigations. However, after investigations, Fang was only punished by being stripped of one month of salary, while at Jiangling, Yuan wrote many poems, and his style and Bais were both popular and referred by the populace as Yuanhe Style — Yuanhe being Emperor Xianzongs era name

Yuan Zhen
–
Yuan Zhen

14.
The Story of Yingying
–
The Biography of Ying-ying, also translated as the Story of Yingying, by Yuan Zhen, is Tang dynasty chuanqi story. It tells the story of a relationship conflicted between love and duty between a 16-year-old girl and a 21-year-old student and it is considered to be one of the first works of fiction in Chinese literature. Yuan Zhen pioneered psychological exploration and possibilities of plot development and his tale mixed narration, poetry and letters from one character to another to demonstrate emotion rather than describe it, making it in one sense an epistolary novel. Recent critic Gu Mingdong suggests that with this tale, Chinese fiction “came of age, ” and the story provided themes for plays, stories. Yingyings Biography was one of three Tang Dynasty works particularly influential in the development of the caizi-jiaren, the father of the family had died while stationed in some remote part of China, so the widow Cui was returning the family to Chang-an. They paused in their journey to recuperate from their long trek, troops in the nearby city mutinied, so the student Zhang used his friendly connections with influential men in that city to get a guard posted over the compound. The widow Cui and her group were made more secure as a result of the student Zhangs pulling of strings. She gave a banquet to express her gratitude for Zhangs actions, the widow Cui instructed her daughter to attend the banquet and to say thank you to the student Zhang. However, the daughter only appeared because she was under duress, nevertheless, she appeared gloriously beautiful to Zhang despite her deliberately unkempt state. He had hitherto experienced no intimacy with anyone, and his cohorts had teased him about his lack of experience, there is no indication whatsoever that he had loving parents, siblings, or anyone in his life who was more to him than a mere acquaintance. He was immediately infatuated with this woman who was so different from the young women who entertained his cohorts in the capital. Zhang could not properly contact Cui Ying-ying directly and he arranged an indirect conduit through which he sent two vernal poems that the author of the story indicates would have conveyed no indecent propositions. Ying-ying responded with a poem that indicated romantic interest in my lover, the student Zhang thought that his salvation was at hand, i. e. that he would at last find an end to the long dearth of affection in his life. However, when he kept the appointment Ying-ying called him a virtual rapist, several nights later, Ying-ying came to his apartment without prior arrangement and initiated intercourse with him. She said not a word to him from the time she entered his apartment to the time she left at dawn the next day. Before long they had established a pattern in which Zhang would sneak into her dwelling each night, despite her daughter entertaining a virile man every night, the widow Cui did not intervene. When her daughter asked for her reaction she said, essentially, Ying-ying felt that Zhang was abandoning her. She blamed him for attending to education and job seeking rather than staying with her, Zhang did not pass the examination and returned to the Buddhist compound

The Story of Yingying
–
scene from Story of the Western Wing, an opera inspired by Story of Yingying

15.
Qing Dynasty
–
It was preceded by the Ming dynasty and succeeded by the Republic of China. The Qing multi-cultural empire lasted almost three centuries and formed the base for the modern Chinese state. The dynasty was founded by the Jurchen Aisin Gioro clan in Manchuria, in the late sixteenth century, Nurhaci, originally a Ming vassal, began organizing Banners, military-social units that included Jurchen, Han Chinese, and Mongol elements. Nurhaci formed the Jurchen clans into an entity, which he renamed as the Manchus. By 1636, his son Hong Taiji began driving Ming forces out of Liaodong and declared a new dynasty, in 1644, peasant rebels led by Li Zicheng conquered the Ming capital, Beijing. The Ten Great Campaigns of the Qianlong Emperor from the 1750s to the 1790s extended Qing control into Central Asia, the early rulers maintained their Manchu ways, and while their title was Emperor, they used khan to the Mongols and they were patrons of Tibetan Buddhism. They governed using Confucian styles and institutions of government and retained the imperial examinations to recruit Han Chinese to work under or in parallel with Manchus. They also adapted the ideals of the system in dealing with neighboring territories. The Qianlong reign saw the apogee and initial decline in prosperity. The population rose to some 400 million, but taxes and government revenues were fixed at a low rate, corruption set in, rebels tested government legitimacy, and ruling elites did not change their mindsets in the face of changes in the world system. Following the Opium War, European powers imposed unequal treaties, free trade, the Taiping Rebellion and the Dungan Revolt in Central Asia led to the deaths of some 20 million people, most of them due to famines caused by war. In spite of disasters, in the Tongzhi Restoration of the 1860s, Han Chinese elites rallied to the defense of the Confucian order. The initial gains in the Self-Strengthening Movement were destroyed in the First Sino-Japanese War of 1895, in which the Qing lost its influence over Korea, New Armies were organized, but the ambitious Hundred Days Reform of 1898 was turned back by Empress Dowager Cixi, a conservative leader. Sun Yat-sen and other revolutionaries competed with reformist monarchists such as Kang Youwei, after the deaths of Cixi and the Guangxu Emperor in 1908, the hardline Manchu court alienated reformers and local elites alike. The Wuchang Uprising on October 11,1911, led to the Xinhai Revolution, General Yuan Shikai negotiated the abdication of Puyi, the last emperor, on February 12,1912. Nurhaci declared himself the Bright Khan of the Later Jin state in both of the 12–13th century Jurchen Jin dynasty and of his Aisin Gioro clan. His son Hong Taiji renamed the dynasty Great Qing in 1636, there are competing explanations on the meaning of Qīng. The character Qīng is composed of water and azure, both associated with the water element and this association would justify the Qing conquest as defeat of fire by water

Qing Dynasty
–
History of China
Qing Dynasty
–
Flag (1889–1912)
Qing Dynasty
–
An Italian map showing the "Kingdom of the Nüzhen " or the " Jin Tartars", who "have occupied and are at present ruling China", north of Liaodong and Korea, published in 1682
Qing Dynasty
–
Qing era brush container

16.
Chen Hongshou
–
Chen Hongshou, formerly romanized as Chen Hung-shou, was a Chinese painter of the late Ming dynasty. Chen was born in Zhuji, Zhejiang province in 1598, during the Ming dynasty and his courtesy name was Zhanghou, and his pseudonyms were Laolian, Fuchi, Yunmenseng, Huichi, Chiheshang and Huiseng. He once trained under Lan Ying, and was skilled in painting human figures, landscapes. He utilized plump, profound brushwork and precise color, creating a unique style and he always painted illustrations and made tapestry portraits. His two masterpieces, Shui Hu Ye Zi and Bo Gu Ye Zi, were the rare examples among the Ming and he was very famous at that time, called Chen in South and Cui in North, together with Cui Zizhong. He also was skilled in calligraphy, poetry and prose, Chen Hongshou and his Painting Gallery at China Online Museum

17.
Manchu language
–
Manchu is a severely endangered Tungusic language spoken in Manchuria, it was the native language of the Manchus and one of the official languages of the Qing dynasty of China. Most Manchus now speak Mandarin Chinese, according to data from UNESCO, there are 10 native speakers of Manchu out of a total of nearly 10 million ethnic Manchus. Manchu language enjoys high historical value for historians of China, especially for the Qing dynasty and they supply information that is unavailable in Chinese and, when both Manchu and Chinese versions of a given text exist, they provide controls for understanding the Chinese. Like most Siberian languages, Manchu is a language that demonstrates limited vowel harmony. It has been demonstrated that it is derived mainly from the Jurchen language though there are many words from Mongolian. Its script is written and taken from the Mongolian alphabet. The Manchu language uses the Manchu script, which was derived from the traditional Mongol script, Manchu is usually romanized according to the system devised by Paul Georg von Möllendorff in his Manchu grammar. Its ancestor, Jurchen, used the Jurchen script, which is derived from the Khitan script, there is no relation between the Jurchen script and the Manchu script Chinese Characters can also be used to transliterate Manchu. Mongols learnt their script as a syllabary, dividing the syllables into twelve different classes, based on the final phonemes of the syllables, all of which ended in vowels. The Manchus followed the same syllabic method when learning Manchu script, today, the opinion on whether it is alphabet or syllabic in nature is still split between different experts. In China, it is considered syllabic and Manchu is still taught in this manner, the alphabetic approach is used mainly by foreigners who want to learn the language. Studying Manchu script as a syllabary takes a longer time, Manchus when learning, instead of saying I, a---la, I, o---lo, &c. were taught at once to say la, lo, &c. Many more syllables than are contained in their syllabary might have formed with their letters. The Qing dynasty referred to the Manchu language in various Chinese titles such as Qingwen 清文, or Qingyu 清語 and Guoyu 國語, the national was also applied to the Manchu writing as in Guowen 國文 in addition to Guoyu 國語. In the Manchu language version of the Treaty of Nerchinsk, the term Chinese language referred to all three Chinese, Manchu, and Mongol languages, not just one language, Guoyu now refers to Standard Chinese. In 1635 Hong Taiji renamed the Jurchen people and Jurchen language as Manchu, Manchu began as a primary language of the Qing dynasty Imperial court, but as Manchu officials became increasingly sinicized, many started losing the language. Trying to preserve the Manchu identity, the government instituted Manchu language classes and examinations for the bannermen. Chinese classics and fiction were translated into Manchu, and a body of Manchu literature accumulated, as the Yongzheng Emperor explained, If some special encouragement … is not offered, the ancestral language will not be passed on and learned

Manchu language
–
Plaque at the Forbidden City in Beijing, China, in both Chinese (left, qián qīng mén) and Manchu (right, kiyan cing men)
Manchu language
–
A symbol of the Manchu people
Manchu language
–
The Kangxi Emperor 's stele near Lugou Bridge, with parallel Chinese and Manchu text
Manchu language
–
"Banjin Inenggi" and Manchu linguistic activity by the government and students in Changchun, 2011

18.
Silent film
–
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. The silent film era lasted from 1895 to 1936, in silent films for entertainment, the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, mime and title cards which contain a written indication of the plot or key dialogue. During silent films, a pianist, theatre organist, or, in large cities, pianists and organists would either play from sheet music or improvise, an orchestra would play from sheet music. The term silent film is therefore a retronym—that is, a term created to distinguish something retroactively, the early films with sound, starting with The Jazz Singer in 1927, were referred to as talkies, sound films, or talking pictures. A September 2013 report by the United States Library of Congress announced that a total of 70% of American silent feature films are believed to be completely lost, the earliest precursors of film began with image projection through the use of a device known as the magic lantern. This utilized a glass lens, a shutter and a persistent light source, such as a powerful lantern and these slides were originally hand-painted, but still photographs were used later on after the technological advent of photography in the nineteenth century. The invention of a practical photography apparatus preceded cinema by only fifty years, the next significant step towards film creation was the development of an understanding of image movement. Simulations of movement date as far back as to 1828 and only four years after Paul Roget discovered the phenomenon he called Persistence of Vision. This experience was further demonstrated through Rogets introduction of the thaumatrope, the first projected primary proto-movie was made by Eadweard Muybridge between 1877 and 1880. Muybridge set up a row of cameras along a racetrack and timed image exposures to capture the many stages of a horses gallop, the oldest surviving film was created by Louis Le Prince in 1888. It was a film of people walking in Oakwood streets garden. Edison also made a business of selling Kinetograph and Kinetoscope equipment, due to Edisons lack of securing an international patent on his film inventions, similar devices were invented around the world. The Lumière brothers, for example, created the Cinématographe in France, the Cinématographe proved to be a more portable and practical device than both of Edisons as it combined a camera, film processor and projector in one unit. In contrast to Edisons peepshow-style kinetoscope, which one person could watch through a viewer. Their first film, Sortie de lusine Lumière de Lyon, shot in 1894, is considered the first true motion picture, the invention of celluloid film, which was strong and flexible, greatly facilitated the making of motion pictures. This film was 35 mm wide and pulled using four sprocket holes and this doomed the cinematograph, which could only use film with just one sprocket hole. From the very beginnings of film production, the art of motion pictures grew into maturity in the silent era. Silent filmmakers pioneered the art form to the extent that virtually every style, the silent era was also pioneering era from a technical point of view

Silent film
–
Scene from Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921), one of the highest-grossing silent films.
Silent film
–
The iconic clock scene from Safety Last! (1923)
Silent film
–
Lillian Gish, the "First Lady of the American Cinema", was a leading star in the silent era with one of the longest careers, working from 1912 to 1987
Silent film
–
Cinématographe Lumière at the Institut Lumière, France. Such cameras had no audio recording devices built into the cameras.

19.
Hou Yao
–
Hou Yao was a pioneering Chinese film director, screenwriter, and film theorist. He wrote and directed films including The Discarded Wife, Romance of the Western Chamber, the first Chinese film shown in Western countries. He wrote Techniques of Writing Shadowplay Scripts, the first theory book on Chinese filmmaking and he founded the Culture Film Company, which was merged into a predecessor of the Shaw Brothers Studio. He has been called the Chinese Henrik Ibsen for his advocacy for gender equality, after the Empire of Japan invaded China in 1937, Hou Yao wrote and directed a series of patriotic films against Japanese aggression. In 1942, he was murdered by the Japanese during the Sook Ching massacre in Singapore, Hou Yao was born in 1903 in Panyu, Guangdong province. In the 1920s, he attended Nanjing Advanced Normal School in Nanjing, Jiangsu province and he joined the influential Literary Association at the school, and wrote the stage play The Discarded Wife. After graduating in 1924, Hou joined the Great Wall Film Company in Shanghai, where he adapted The Discarded Wife into a film and it was Great Walls first film. He then wrote the scripts for the films In the Dream of Loved Ones and The Star-Plucking Girl, each of his films of this period sought to reflect a social issue, such as womens rights, marriage, and war. Along with his wife Pu Shunqing, he was an advocate for gender equality. In 1925, Hou Yao published Techniques of Writing Shadowplay Scripts, in the same year, he joined the Minxin Film Company founded by Li Minwei. He directed Peace of God in 1926 and Romance of the Western Chamber in 1927, the latter was the first Chinese film shown in Western countries. He directed and starred in A Poet at the End of the Seas, in 1928 he directed Mulan Joins the Army. Hou went to Tianjin in 1929 and worked as a teacher for a time and he then briefly worked for the Beijing branch of Li Minweis Lianhua Film Company, where he produced Sad Song from an Old Palace in 1932. He later moved to Hong Kong, and established his own studio, in 1933, he made the film The Fool Pays Respects for Zhenye Film Company. In 1937, the Second Sino-Japanese War erupted, storm Over the Pacific, adapted from a novel he wrote himself, envisioned the outbreak of the Pacific War and the defeat of the Empire of Japan by the United States and the Soviet Union. In 1940, Hou moved to Singapore, where he continued to work for the Shaw Brothers, after the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941, Japan defeated Britain and occupied Singapore. Because of his history of activism, the Japanese murdered Hou Yao in 1942. Hou Yao is considered a pioneer of Chinese cinema, and his extant films, a String of Pearls, a 1926 film he scripted, and Romance of the West Chamber were long thought to be lost, but rediscovered in the 1990s

20.
Lost in the Chamber of Love
–
Lost in the Chamber of Love is a TVB costume drama series released overseas in December 2004 and broadcast on TVB Jade Channel in February 2005. Cheung Kwan-Sui and Hung Leung each picks up one half of a matching jade at a lantern fair, however, they do not meet each other that night. At the same fair, Sui saves the Governors daughter Chui Ang-Ang from some kidnappers, the Governors wife promises to marry Ang-Ang to him in order to thank him. Nevertheless, she denies her promise later and demands him to become a scholar before Sui can marry Ang-Ang. He moves into the West Chamber, their guesthouse, and studies hard, the Emperor Tong Dak-Chung meets Ang Ang when he is traveling incognito under the name of Bun. He is shocked by her beauty, however, Ang-Ang is deterred to develop further in their relationship by her engagement with Sui. Apart from this triangle, there is one more girl Leung. Leung is Ang-Angs servant and best friend and she has to hide her feelings for Sui although she cares a lot about Ang-Angs decision in choosing between Bun and Shui. Meanwhile, the court sets out a search for a Tibetan princess who is engaged to the Emperor. Secrets about their lives are revealed and will change their destiny. TVB. com Lost in the Chamber of Love - Official Website

Lost in the Chamber of Love
–
Lost in the Chamber of Love 西廂奇緣

21.
Myolie Wu
–
Myolie Wu Hang-yee, is a Hong Kong actress and singer. Born in Hong Kong with Guangdong Taishan ancestry, she is signed under for the Hong Kong TVB television station and she has twice won My Favorite TV Actress at the Astro Favorites Awards Ceremony. By summer of 2015, Myolie left TVB to explore new avenues, in her schooling days, Myolie received high school education in Boarding School at Methodist College Belfast, Northern Ireland. She later returned to Hong Kong and attended the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, during her first year in university, Myolie took part the Miss Hong Kong pageant in 1999 and clinched second runner-up. Shortly afterward, she signed on to TVB as a contracted artiste. In her early years, Myolie started out as supporting characters in television serials and her acting began to gain recognition through her breakthrough performance in Golden Faith, in which she portrayed the mentally challenged younger sister of Gallen Lo. Her role was received by the audience and she was awarded the Most Improved Female Artiste Award at the 2002 TVB Anniversary Awards. Myolie was offered her first lead role in Survivors Law in 2003, in the same year, she also starred in the classic TVB drama Triumph in the Skies alongside veteran actors Francis Ng and Flora Chan. Both series received viewership ratings and Myolie soon rose to popularity. In 2005, TVB aired five drama serials in which Myolie was lead actress and she received further acknowledgement for her acting in the hit series Wars of In-Laws where she played the shrewd daughter in-law of Liza Wang. The same serial was also what sparked her ongoing rumours with co-star Bosco Wong, despite widespread criticism, Myolie gained major weight for her role as an overweight woman in the 2006 television series To Grow With Love. Through her role, she was awarded Best Comedy Performance by an Actress at the Asian Television Award, in 2007, Myolie was paired with Mainland actor Feng Shao Feng in the TVB-CCTV joint production The Drive Of Life. The couple was received by fans. She also starred as Chow Lai-Man in the installment of War of In-Laws. The drama achieved a viewership rating and her performance was well-praised. She continued to film her second Mainland series Happy Mother-in-Law, Pretty Daughter-in-Law as lead actress the same year and she also filmed her third Mainland drama Racecourse alongside boyfriend Bosco Wong in late 2010. The series was their third collaboration portraying a couple, in 2011, Myolie starred in TVB dramas The Rippling Blossom, Ghetto Justice, and Curse of the Royal Harem and all three series were listed as Top 5 in viewership ratings of the year. She was also voted by the audience as the Most Extraordinary Elegant Actress during the awards, by the summer of 2015, after 16 years with TVB, Myolie decided not to renew her contract with TVB to explore new prospects

Myolie Wu
–
Myolie Wu in 2007

22.
Michelle Ye
–
Michelle Ye or Ye Xuan is a Chinese actress and producer. In 1999, she won the Miss Chinese International competition, Ye then signed a contract with TVB from 1999 to 2005. After she left TVB, She signed with Rich & Famous Talent Management Group Limited to pursue a movie career, Ye is fluent in Cantonese, English, and Mandarin. She immigrated to the United States at age 10 and she attended John Dewey High School where she won first place at the International Science and Engineering Fair in the Botany sector. She was a student at Wellesley College, but left before graduating to pursue a career in the entertainment industry. In July 1999, Ye accepted a contract offered by TVB after winning the Miss Chinese International Pageant and she had a number of leading roles in dramas such as, Eternal Happiness, Triumph in the Skies, and Lost in the Chamber of Love. Ye has worked as a host and MC, in 2004, she was TVBs on-site reporter at the Olympic Games in Athens. Additionally, she was the MC for a special mid-autumn evening broadcast on CCTV and she left TVB in June 2005 and moved on to Rich & Famous one month after to get more exposure in the movie industry. Ye also starred in a few series with ATV, China Productions, Ye published an autobiography titled Shang Shan Ruo Shui - Xuan Gong Lue in July 2006. Apart from her career, she is currently owner and chairman of a production company, owner of a sushi restaurant. Michelle Ye was born in Hangzhou, China and she was named after her mother’s favorite actress Zhou Xuan. Ye’s mother was a housewife and her father a lawyer and her father was constantly on business travel, thus leaving Ye to be cared for by her mother solely. When Ye was 7 years old, her father moved overseas, Ye’s parents divorced when she was 9 years old. Her mother no longer wanted to care for her and instead wanted Ye’s father to know what it was like to take care of their child, Ye then lived with her paternal grandparents. Her grandparents were retired professors who lived in a hostel in the university. She was loved and spoiled by her grandparents, but her grandfather was extremely strict with her academics, under his guidance, her academic results were good. Ye was involved in a lot of school activities, at the age of 10, her father brought her and her grandparents to come live with him in New York City. Ye’s father told her that a career is first priority

Michelle Ye
–
Michelle Ye

23.
Emperor Dezong of Tang
–
Emperor Dezong of Tang, personal name Li Kuo, was an emperor of the Chinese Tang Dynasty and the oldest son of his father Emperor Daizong. His reign of 26 years was the third longest in the Tang dynasty, Emperor Dezong started out as a diligent and frugal emperor and he tried to reform the governmental finances by introducing new tax laws. His attempts to destroy the powerful regional warlords and the subsequent mismanagement of those campaigns, however, resulted in a number of rebellions that nearly destroyed him and the Tang Dynasty. After those events, he dealt cautiously with the governors, causing warlordism to become unchecked. He was also known for his paranoia about officials wielding too much power, Li Kuo was born in 742, during the reign of his great-grandfather Emperor Xuanzong. His father was Li Chu the Prince of Guangping—the oldest son of Emperor Xuanzongs son and crown prince Li Heng and his mother was a consort of Li Chus, Consort Shen. He was born at the eastern palace—i. e, the Crown Princes palace—at the Tang capital Changan. Later that year, he was created the Prince of Fengjie, during the Anshi Rebellion, which erupted in 755, Emperor Xuanzong fled to Chengdu, while Li Heng and his sons, including Li Chu, fled to Lingwu. While Li Heng was at Lingwu, he was declared emperor, after Changan was recaptured from Yan forces in 756, Li Chu was made crown prince, and in 762, after Emperor Suzongs death, he became emperor. Emperor Daizong gave Li Kuo the title of commander of the armed forces and created him the Prince of Lu. When Li Kuo met Huiges Dengli Khan Yaoluoge Yidijian, he treated Yaoluoge Yidijian as an equal, Yaoluoge Yidijian had Li Kuos Yao Ziang, Wei Ju, Wei Shaohua, and Li Jin arrested and whipped severely, such that Wei Ju and Wei Shaohua died that night. Yaoluoge Yidijian did not harm Li Kuo, but sent him back to the Tang camp and this incident would cause Li Kuo to bear great hatred for Huige later. In 764, Li Kuo was created crown prince, in 779, when Emperor Daizong fell ill, Li Kuo briefly served as regent, and when Emperor Daizong subsequently died, he succeeded Emperor Daizong. Guo Ziyi, who had military authority, was effectively forced into retirement. Emperor Dezong further resumed the search for his mother Consort Shen and he commissioned officials, as well as Shen clan members, to be in charge of the search, and gave many members of the Shen clan honors. However, her brother Gao Chengyue found out and reported to Emperor Dezong and she subsequently admitted to not being the real Empress Dowager Shen. Emperor Dezong did not punish her or anyone involved, fearing that doing so would hamper the search for his mother. Later in his reign, there were more incidents were others claimed to be Empress Dowager Shen, but were discovered to be imposters

24.
The Orphan of Zhao
–
The Orphan of Zhao is a Chinese play from the Yuan era, attributed to the 13th-century dramatist Ji Junxiang. The play has as its full name The Great Revenge of the Orphan of Zhao, the play is classified in the zaju genre of dramas. It revolves around the theme of revenge. The play is divided in six parts, comprising five acts and a wedge and it contains both dialogue and songs. The story of The Orphan of Zhao takes place during the Spring, the protagonists are General Han Jue in the first act, the retired Minister Gongsun Chujiu in the second and third act, and the Zhao orphan in the final two acts. The Orphan of Zhao was the earliest Chinese play to be known in Europe, until Ji Junxiangs play in the 13th century, the story appeared in prose form as historical narrative. After Ji’s play, stage drama was the form, with numerous regional operas. The Records of the Grand Historian, written by the Han Dynasty historian Sima Qian and these records were adapted by Ji Junxiang in The Orphan of Zhao. The play depicts the theme of revenge, which is placed in the context of Confucian morality. Duke Ling was the ruler of the Jin state, in his court, Minister Zhao Dun and General Tuan Gu were two of his most influential subordinates. However, Tuan Gu had a hatred for Zhao Dun. He wanted to destroy his rival, Zhao Dun, and exterminate the Zhao family, General Tuan Gu succeeded in framing Zhao Dun, and slaughtered 300 members of the Zhao family. Soon thereafter, a decree was forged in the name to order the death of General Zhao Shuo. Zhao Shuo had namely been spared during the massacre as he was married to the daughter of Duke Ling, when General Zhao Shuo received the forged decree, he commits suicide. Zhao Shuo and his wife were expecting a child, but the infant was born after the circumstances involving his fathers death. Tuan Gu, intending to get rid of the newborn infant, Lady Zhuang entrusts her newborn child to the physician Cheng Ying, a retainer to the Zhao family. However, she knew—as Cheng Ying had indicated—that she would be pressured to reveal where her child is, as the physician Cheng Ying was entrusted to keep the child safe, he attempts to escape with the child hidden in his medicine chest. While Cheng is departing through the gates, he is stopped and questioned by Han Jue

The Orphan of Zhao
–
A page of Prémare's translation in French

25.
The China Quarterly
–
The China Quarterly is a British peer-reviewed academic journal that was established in 1960 and focuses on all aspects of contemporary Mainland China and Taiwan. It covers a range of subjects including anthropology, business, literature and the arts, economics, geography, history, international affairs, law, politics, each issue contains articles and research reports, and a comprehensive book review section. The China Quarterly is owned by the School of Oriental and African Studies and its current editor-in-chief is Chris Bramall, who succeeded Julia Strauss in 2011. The China Quarterly began as an offshoot of Soviet Survey, a journal published by the Congress for Cultural Freedom, walter Laqueur, the editor of Soviet Survey, asked sinologist Roderick MacFarquhar to edit the new journal in 1959, and the first issue was released in 1960. Publication of the journal was transferred from the CCF to the School of Oriental. David Wilson succeeded MacFarquhar as editor in 1968

The China Quarterly
–
The China Quarterly

26.
JSTOR
–
JSTOR is a digital library founded in 1995. Originally containing digitized back issues of journals, it now also includes books and primary sources. It provides full-text searches of almost 2,000 journals, more than 8,000 institutions in more than 160 countries have access to JSTOR, most access is by subscription, but some older public domain content is freely available to anyone. William G. Bowen, president of Princeton University from 1972 to 1988, JSTOR originally was conceived as a solution to one of the problems faced by libraries, especially research and university libraries, due to the increasing number of academic journals in existence. Most libraries found it prohibitively expensive in terms of cost and space to maintain a collection of journals. By digitizing many journal titles, JSTOR allowed libraries to outsource the storage of journals with the confidence that they would remain available long-term, online access and full-text search ability improved access dramatically. Bowen initially considered using CD-ROMs for distribution, JSTOR was initiated in 1995 at seven different library sites, and originally encompassed ten economics and history journals. JSTOR access improved based on feedback from its sites. Special software was put in place to make pictures and graphs clear, with the success of this limited project, Bowen and Kevin Guthrie, then-president of JSTOR, wanted to expand the number of participating journals. They met with representatives of the Royal Society of London and an agreement was made to digitize the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society dating from its beginning in 1665, the work of adding these volumes to JSTOR was completed by December 2000. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation funded JSTOR initially, until January 2009 JSTOR operated as an independent, self-sustaining nonprofit organization with offices in New York City and in Ann Arbor, Michigan. JSTOR content is provided by more than 900 publishers, the database contains more than 1,900 journal titles, in more than 50 disciplines. Each object is identified by an integer value, starting at 1. In addition to the site, the JSTOR labs group operates an open service that allows access to the contents of the archives for the purposes of corpus analysis at its Data for Research service. This site offers a facility with graphical indication of the article coverage. Users may create focused sets of articles and then request a dataset containing word and n-gram frequencies and they are notified when the dataset is ready and may download it in either XML or CSV formats. The service does not offer full-text, although academics may request that from JSTOR, JSTOR Plant Science is available in addition to the main site. The materials on JSTOR Plant Science are contributed through the Global Plants Initiative and are only to JSTOR

JSTOR
–
The JSTOR front page

27.
Wikisource
–
Wikisource is an online digital library of free content textual sources on a wiki, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikisource is the name of the project as a whole and the name for each instance of that project, the projects aims are to host all forms of free text, in many languages, and translations. Originally conceived as an archive to store useful or important historical texts, the project officially began in November 24,2003 under the name Project Sourceberg. The name Wikisource was adopted later that year and it received its own domain name seven months later, the project has come under criticism for lack of reliability but it is also cited by organisations such as the National Archives and Records Administration. The project holds works that are either in the domain or freely licensed, professionally published works or historical source documents, not vanity products. Verification was initially made offline, or by trusting the reliability of digital libraries. Now works are supported by online scans via the ProofreadPage extension, some individual Wikisources, each representing a specific language, now only allow works backed up with scans. While the bulk of its collection are texts, Wikisource as a whole hosts other media, some Wikisources allow user-generated annotations, subject to the specific policies of the Wikisource in question. Wikisources early history included several changes of name and location, the original concept for Wikisource was as storage for useful or important historical texts. These texts were intended to support Wikipedia articles, by providing evidence and original source texts. The collection was focused on important historical and cultural material. The project was originally called Project Sourceberg during its planning stages, in 2001, there was a dispute on Wikipedia regarding the addition of primary source material, leading to edit wars over their inclusion or deletion. Project Sourceberg was suggested as a solution to this, perhaps Project Sourceberg can mainly work as an interface for easily linking from Wikipedia to a Project Gutenberg file, and as an interface for people to easily submit new work to PG. Wed want to complement Project Gutenberg--how, exactly, and Jimmy Wales adding like Larry, Im interested that we think it over to see what we can add to Project Gutenberg. It seems unlikely that primary sources should in general be editable by anyone -- I mean, Shakespeare is Shakespeare, unlike our commentary on his work, the project began its activity at ps. wikipedia. org. The contributors understood the PS subdomain to mean either primary sources or Project Sourceberg, however, this resulted in Project Sourceberg occupying the subdomain of the Pashto Wikipedia. A vote on the name changed it to Wikisource on December 6,2003. Despite the change in name, the project did not move to its permanent URL until July 23,2004, since Wikisource was initially called Project Sourceberg, its first logo was a picture of an iceberg

28.
Project Gutenberg
–
Project Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks. It was founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital library, most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books. The project tries to make these as free as possible, in long-lasting, as of 3 October 2015, Project Gutenberg reached 50,000 items in its collection. The releases are available in plain text but, wherever possible, other formats are included, such as HTML, PDF, EPUB, MOBI, most releases are in the English language, but many non-English works are also available. There are multiple affiliated projects that are providing additional content, including regional, Project Gutenberg is also closely affiliated with Distributed Proofreaders, an Internet-based community for proofreading scanned texts. Project Gutenberg was started by Michael Hart in 1971 with the digitization of the United States Declaration of Independence, Hart, a student at the University of Illinois, obtained access to a Xerox Sigma V mainframe computer in the universitys Materials Research Lab. Through friendly operators, he received an account with an unlimited amount of computer time. Hart has said he wanted to back this gift by doing something that could be considered to be of great value. His initial goal was to make the 10,000 most consulted books available to the public at little or no charge and this particular computer was one of the 15 nodes on ARPANET, the computer network that would become the Internet. Hart believed that computers would one day be accessible to the general public and he used a copy of the United States Declaration of Independence in his backpack, and this became the first Project Gutenberg e-text. He named the project after Johannes Gutenberg, the fifteenth century German printer who propelled the movable type printing press revolution, by the mid-1990s, Hart was running Project Gutenberg from Illinois Benedictine College. More volunteers had joined the effort, all of the text was entered manually until 1989 when image scanners and optical character recognition software improved and became more widely available, which made book scanning more feasible. Hart later came to an arrangement with Carnegie Mellon University, which agreed to administer Project Gutenbergs finances, as the volume of e-texts increased, volunteers began to take over the projects day-to-day operations that Hart had run. Starting in 2004, an online catalog made Project Gutenberg content easier to browse, access. Project Gutenberg is now hosted by ibiblio at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Italian volunteer Pietro Di Miceli developed and administered the first Project Gutenberg website and started the development of the Project online Catalog. In his ten years in this role, the Project web pages won a number of awards, often being featured in best of the Web listings, Hart died on 6 September 2011 at his home in Urbana, Illinois at the age of 64. In 2000, a corporation, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Long-time Project Gutenberg volunteer Gregory Newby became the foundations first CEO, also in 2000, Charles Franks founded Distributed Proofreaders, which allowed the proofreading of scanned texts to be distributed among many volunteers over the Internet

29.
History of the Yuan dynasty
–
The Yuan dynasty was the ruling dynasty of China and Mongolia established by Kublai Khan and a khanate of the Mongol Empire. Genghis Khan united the Mongol and Turkic tribes of the steppes and he and his successors expanded the Mongol Empire across Asia. Under the reign of Genghis third son, Ögedei Khan, the Mongols destroyed the weakened Jin dynasty in 1234, Ögedei offered his nephew Kublai a position in Xingzhou, Hebei. Kublai was unable to read Chinese, but had several Han Chinese teachers attached to him since his early years by his mother Sorghaghtani and he sought the counsel of Chinese Buddhist and Confucian advisers. Möngke Khan succeeded Ögedeis son, Güyük, as Great Khan in 1251 and he granted his brother Kublai control over Mongol held territories in China. Kublai built schools for Confucian scholars, issued paper money, revived Chinese rituals and he made the city of Kaiping in Inner Mongolia, later renamed Shangdu, his capital. Many Han Chinese and Khitan defected to the Mongols to fight against the Jin, two Han Chinese leaders, Shi Tianze, Liu Heima, and the Khitan Xiao Zhala defected and commanded the 3 Tumens in the Mongol army. Liu Heima and Shi Tianze served Ogödei Khan, Liu Heima and Shi Tianxiang led armies against Western Xia for the Mongols. There were 4 Han Tumens and 3 Khitan Tumens, with each Tumen consisting of 10,000 troops, Shi Tianze was a Han Chinese who lived in the Jin dynasty. Interethnic marriage between Han and Jurchen became common at this time, Shi Bingzhi was married to a Jurchen woman and a Han Chinese woman, it is unknown which of them was Shi Tianzes mother. Shi Tianze was married to two Jurchen women, a Han Chinese woman, and a Korean woman, and his son Shi Gang was born to one of his Jurchen wives. His Jurchen wives surnames were Mo-nien and Na-ho, his Korean wifes surname was Li, Shi Tianze defected to the Mongol Empires forces upon their invasion of the Jin dynasty. His son Shi Gang married a Kerait woman, the Kerait were Mongolified Turkic people, the Yuan dynasty created a Han Army out of defected Jin troops and army of defected Song troops called the Newly Submitted Army. Möngke Khan commenced a campaign against the Chinese Song dynasty in southern China. The Mongol force which invaded southern China was far greater than the force sent to invade the Middle East in 1256. He died in 1259 without a successor, Kublai returned from fighting the Song in 1260 when he learned that his brother, Ariq Böke, was challenging his claim to the throne. Kublai convened a kurultai in the Chinese city of Kaiping that elected him Great Khan, a rival kurultai in Mongolia proclaimed Ariq Böke Great Khan, beginning a civil war. Kublai Khan depended on the cooperation of his Chinese subjects to ensure that his army received ample resources and he bolstered his popularity among his subjects by modeling his government on the bureaucracy of traditional Chinese dynasties and adopting the Chinese era name of Zhongtong

30.
Division of the Mongol Empire
–
The four khanates each pursued their own separate interests and objectives, and fell at different times. Möngke Khans brother Hulagu Khan broke off his military advance into Syria, withdrawing the bulk of his forces to Mughan. In 1260, the Mamluks advanced from Egypt, being allowed to camp and resupply near the Christian stronghold of Acre, the Mongols were defeated, and Kitbuqa was executed. This pivotal battle marked the limit for Mongol expansion, as the Mongols were never again able to make any serious military advances farther than Syria. In a separate part of the empire, another brother of Hulagu and Möngke, Kublai Khan, rather than returning to the capital, he continued his advance into the Wuchang area of China, near the Yangtze River. Battles ensued between the armies of Kublai and those of his brother Ariqboke, which included forces still loyal to Möngkes previous administration, Kublais army easily eliminated Ariqbokes supporters and seized control of the civil administration in southern Mongolia. Further challenges took place from their cousins, the Chagataids, Kublai sent Abishka, a Chagataid prince loyal to him, to take charge of Chagatais realm. But Ariqboke captured and then executed Abishka, having his own man Alghu crowned there instead, Kublais new administration blockaded Ariqboke in Mongolia to cut off food supplies, causing a famine. Karakorum fell quickly to Kublai, but Ariqboke rallied and re-took the capital in 1261. In the southwestern Ilkhanate, Hulagu was loyal to his brother Kublai, but clashes with their cousin Berke, Berke also forged an alliance with the Egyptian Mamluks against Hulagu and supported Kublais rival claimant, Ariqboke. Hulagu died on February 8,1264, Berke sought to take advantage and invade Hulagus realm, but he died along the way, and a few months later Alghu Khan of the Chagatai Khanate died as well. Kublai named Hulagus son Abaqa as a new Ilkhan, and Abaqa sought foreign alliances, Kublai nominated Batus grandson Möngke Temür to lead the Golden Horde. Ariqboqe surrendered to Kublai at Shangdu on August 21,1264, the establishment of the Yuan dynasty by Kublai Khan accelerated the fragmentation of the Mongol Empire. The Mongol Empire fractured into four khanates including the Yuan dynasty, the Golden Horde, the Chagatai Khanate, in 1304, a peace treaty among the khanates established the nominal supremacy of the Yuan dynasty over the western khanates. However, this supremacy was based on nothing like the foundations as that of the earlier Khagans. Conflicts such as border clashes among them continued, an example would be the Esen Buqa–Ayurbarwada war occurred in the 1310s. Each of the four continued to function as separate states. The transition of the capital of the Mongol Empire to Khanbaliq by Kublai Khan in 1264 was opposed by many Mongols, thus, Ariq Bökes struggle was for keeping the center of the Empire in Mongolia homeland

Division of the Mongol Empire
–
The Mongols at war.
Division of the Mongol Empire
–
Fragmentation of the Mongol Empire
Division of the Mongol Empire
–
Kublai Khan, Genghis Khan 's grandson and founder of the Yuan dynasty.
Division of the Mongol Empire
–
A Yuan dynasty jade belt plaque featuring carved designs of a dragon.

31.
Toluid Civil War
–
The Toluid Civil War was fought between Kublai Khan and his younger brother, Ariq Böke, from 1260 to 1264. Möngke Khan died in 1259 with no declared successor, precipitating infighting between members of the Tolui family line for the title of Great Khan that escalated to a civil war. The Toluid Civil War, and the wars that followed it, weakened the authority of the Great Khan over the Mongol Empire, the Tolui family successfully enthroned their candidate for Great Khan, Möngke, in the kurultais of 1250 and 1251. The Ögedeid candidate for Great Khan, Shiremun, and his cousin Nakhu, were embittered by their loss, Möngke took revenge by purging his opponents in the royal house, and members of both the Chagatai and Ögedei families. Möngke handed control over the Caucasus region to the Golden Horde in 1252, with the approval of Möngke, Berke succeeded his brother, Batu, as Khan of the Golden Horde in Russia in 1255. Hulagu of the Ilkhanate seized control of the Caucasus from the Golden Horde, and his sacking of Baghdad in 1258 angered Berke, Möngke Khan died in 1259 without appointing a successor. He likely favored Ariq Böke, whom Möngke designated in 1258 as commander of Karakorum, Kublai Khan was campaigning against the southern Song in 1260 when he received news that Ariq Böke was challenging him for the succession of the throne. Ariq Böke formed alliances with powerful members of the Mongol nobility to endorse him as a candidate for Great Khan, most of Möngkes immediate family supported Ariq Böke. Kublai withdrew from the Song and mobilized his troops to fight Ariq Böke, in China, Kublai summoned a kurultai at Kaiping, where he was elected Great Khan. This was the first kurultai to proclaim a Great Khan outside the Mongol homeland or Central Asia, Ariq Böke convened his own kurultai in Karakorum that proclaimed him Great Khan a month later, creating two rival claimants for the throne. Hulagu embarked for Mongolia to attend the kurultai, but the Mamluk defeat of the Mongols at the Battle of Ain Jalut forced him to back to the Middle East. Berke capitalized on the Mamluk victory by invading the Ilkhanate, beginning the Berke–Hulagu war, Ariq Böke allied with Berke Khan of the Golden Horde and Alghu of the Chagatai Khanate. Hulagu of the Ilkhanate was the ally of Kublai Khan. Berke supported Ariq Böke because he was resentful of Hulagu, who had ties with Kublai. Hulagu and Berke, however, became occupied with their own war, Kublai had access to supplies from the fertile lands of China, while Ariq Böke had to import resources to Karakorum in the semi-arid steppes. Kublai Khan depended on supplies from China and therefore needed Chinese popular support to win the civil war. Kublai ingratiated himself to his subjects with the help of his Chinese advisers and he presented himself as a sage emperor capable of uniting the Chinese, and Ariq Böke as a destructive usurper. Kublai promised to reduce taxes, modeled his government institutions to resemble those of the Chinese dynasties, and adopted the era name of Zhongtong and his policies were popular in northern China, but had no impact on his relations with the Southern Song

Toluid Civil War
–
Kublai Khan (left) and Ariq Böke (right) fought a civil war for the title of Great Khan
Toluid Civil War
Toluid Civil War
–
Ariq Böke's victory against Alghu

32.
Mongol invasion of China
–
The Mongol invasion of China was a series of major military efforts by the Mongols to invade China proper. It spanned six decades in the 13th century and involved the defeat of the Jin dynasty, Western Xia, the Dali Kingdom, the Mongol Empire under Genghis Khan started the conquest with small-scale raids into Western Xia in 1205 and 1207. By 1279, the Mongol leader Kublai Khan had established the Yuan dynasty in China and crushed the last Song resistance and this was the first time in history that the whole of China was conquered and subsequently ruled by a foreign or non-native ruler. In the early 1200s, Temujin, soon to be Genghis Khan, began consolidating his power in Mongolia. Following the death of the Kerait leader Ong Khan to Temujins emerging Mongol Empire in 1203, Keriat leader Nilqa Senggum led a band of followers into Western Xia. However, after his adherents took to plundering the locals, Nilqa Senggum was expelled from Western Xia territory, using his rival Nilga Senggums temporary refuge in Western Xia as a pretext, Temujin launched a raid against the state in 1205 in the Edsin region. The Mongols plundered border settlements and one local Western Xia noble accepted Mongol supremacy, the next year,1206, Temujin was formally proclaimed Genghis Khan, ruler of all the Mongols, marking the official start of the Mongol Empire. In 1207, Genghis led another raid into Western Xia, invading the Ordo region and sacking Wuhai, in 1209, the Genghis undertook a larger campaign to secure the submission of Western Xia. The Mongols, at this point inexperienced at siege warfare, attempted to out the city by diverting the Yellow River. After their defeat in 1210, Western Xia served as vassals to the Mongol Empire for almost a decade. In 1219, Genghis Khan launched his campaign against the Khwarazmian dynasty in Central Asia, and requested military aid from Western Xia. However, the emperor and his military commander Asha refused to part in the campaign, stating that if Genghis had too few troops to attack Khwarazm. Infuriated, Genghis swore vengeance and left to invade Khwarazm, while Western Xia attempted alliances with the Jin, after defeating Khwarazm in 1221, Genghis prepared his armies to punish Western Xia for their betrayal, and in 1225 he attacked with a force of approximately 180,000. After taking Khara-Khoto, the Mongols began a steady advance southward, enraged by Western Xias fierce resistance, Genghis engaged the countryside in annihilative warfare and ordered his generals to systematically destroy cities and garrisons as they went. In August 1226, Mongol troops approached Wuwei, the second-largest city of the Western Xia empire, in Autumn 1226, Genghis took Liangchow, crossed the Helan Shan desert, and in November lay siege to Lingwu, a mere 30 kilometers from Yinchuan. Here, in the Battle of Yellow River, the Mongols destroyed a force of 300,000 Western Xia that launched a counter-attack against them, Yinchuan lay besieged for about six months, after which Genghis opened up peace negotiations while secretly planning to kill the emperor. However, in August 1227, Genghis died of an uncertain cause. In September 1227, Emperor Mozhu surrendered to the Mongols and was promptly executed, the Mongols then mercilessly pillaged Yinchuan, slaughtered the citys population, plundered the imperial tombs west of the city, and completed the effective annihilation the Western Xia state

Mongol invasion of China
–
One of major battles at the Badger Mouth during the Mongol–Jin War.
Mongol invasion of China
–
The siege of Zhongdu (modern Beijing) in 1213–14.

33.
Mongol conquest of the Song dynasty
–
The Mongol conquest of the Song dynasty under Kublai Khan was the final step for the Mongols to rule the whole of China under the Yuan dynasty. It is also considered the Mongol Empires last great military achievement, although Genghis Khan refused, on his death in 1227 he bequeathed a plan to attack the Jin capital by passing through Song territory. Subsequently, a Mongol ambassador was killed by the Song governor in uncertain circumstances, before receiving any explanation, the Mongols marched through Song territory to enter the Jins redoubt in Henan. In 1233 the Song dynasty finally became an ally of the Mongols, Song general Meng Gong defeated the Jin general Wu Xian and directed his troops to besiege the city of Caizhou, to which the last emperor of the Jurchen had fled. With the help of the Mongols, the Song armies were able to extinguish the Jin dynasty that had occupied northern China for more than a century. Thus the Mongol troops, headed by sons of the Ögedei Khan, started their slow and this combination resulted in one of the most difficult and prolonged wars of the Mongol conquests. A greater amount of resistance was put up by Korea. The Mongol force which invaded southern China was far greater than the force sent to invade the Middle East in 1256. Many Han Chinese defected to the Mongols to fight against the Jin, two Han Chinese leaders, Shi Tianze, Liu Heima, and the Khitan Xiao Zhala defected and commanded three Tumens in the Mongol army. Liu Heima and Shi Tianze served Ogödei Khan, Liu Heima and Shi Tianxiang led armies against Western Xia for the Mongols. There were 4 Han Tumens, with each Tumen consisting of 10,000 troops, the four Han Generals Zhang Rou, Yan Shi, Shi Tianze, and Liu Heima commanded the four Han tumens under Ogödei Khan. Shi Tianze was a Han Chinese who lived in the Jin dynasty, interethnic marriage between Han and Jurchen became common at this time. Shi Bingzhi was married to a Jurchen woman and a Han Chinese woman, Shi Tianze was married to two Jurchen women, a Han Chinese woman, and a Korean woman, and his son Shi Gang was born to one of his Jurchen wives. His Jurchen wives surnames were Mo-nien and Na-ho, his Korean wifes surname was Li, Shi Tianze defected to the Mongol Empires forces upon their invasion of the Jin dynasty. His son Shi Gang married a Kerait woman, the Kerait were Mongolified Turkic people and considered as part of the Mongol nation. Shi Tianze, Zhang Rou, and Yan Shi and other high ranking Chinese who served in the Jin dynasty, Chagaan and Zhang Rou jointly launched an attack on the Song dynasty ordered by Töregene Khatun. The Yuan dynasty created a Han Army out of defected Jin troops, in the early spring of 1227, Genghis Khan ordered a small fraction of the army to advance into Songs Circuit of Lizhou, in the name of attacking Jīn and W. Xia. The five zhous of Jie（階）, Feng （鳳）, Cheng（成）, He （和）, then the Mongols moved southward and seized Wénzhou（文州）

Mongol conquest of the Song dynasty
–
Southern Song before Mongol World conquests
Mongol conquest of the Song dynasty
–
Emperor Lizong of Song
Mongol conquest of the Song dynasty
–
Mongol warrior on horseback, preparing a mounted archery shot.
Mongol conquest of the Song dynasty
–
Kublai Khan, the Great Khan of the Mongol Empire and Emperor of the Yuan dynasty. Painting from 1294.

34.
Battle of Xiangyang
–
The Battle of Xiangyang was a key battle between the invading Mongols of the Yuan dynasty and Southern Song forces from AD1267 to 1273. After the battle, the victorious Yuan forces pushed farther into the Song heartland, previously for 30 years, the Song dynasty managed to handle several major offensives by the Mongol Empire. The strategic significance of Xiangyang came from the fact that it was in a position dominating the Han river, once the Yuan forces occupied Xiangyang, they could travel by ships down the Han river into the Yangtze river. The battle consisted of skirmishes, ground assault, and the siege of the fortified cities of Fancheng and Xiangyang in modern-day Hubei. Lü Wenhuan, commander-in-chief of the Southern Song dynasty, surrendered to Kublai Khan in 1273, the conventional use of Mongolian cavalry was restricted by the woody terrain and numerous military outposts of the Southern Song dynasty. The use of the counterweight trebuchet by the Mongols proved especially effective. Before the rule of Kublai Khan, the Mongols had launched military campaigns as far as Eastern Europe, however, the Song dynasty was difficult to conquer because of the strategic location of Xiangyang, which became a vital position for Kublai to capture and hold. The city guarded the waterways of South China because the Han River was a tributary into the Yangtze River. Once the city fell, the Mongols obtained easy access into important Southern cities in China, the Southern Song knew the importance of this vital spot, and treated the defense of Xiangyang as important as their capital. The city was surrounded by mountains on three sides, and a river on one side, Song stored massive amount of supplies inside the fortress, as preparation for long sieges. They also built walls and towers on all four sides of the fortress. Each entrance of the fortress had at least two layers of walls, used to trap enemy sieging forces inside, in 1133, the famous Song general Yue Fei led many successful campaigns against the Jin dynasty, in the Xiangyang area. From there, he pushed the Jin army back north as far as Kaifeng, in 1234, the Jin dynasty was conquered by the Mongols under the leadership of Ögedei. At that time, Mongols and the Southern Song dynasty were allies, after that, the two former allies did not have any common enemy. The Song killed Mongol envoys and attempted to invade the Mongol territories, Xiangyang surrendered to the army of the Mongol Empire without resistance in 1236. But the Mongols voluntarily left the city after it was held by them in 1236-38. The twin cities of Xiangyang-Fenchang, with walls almost 5 kilometers around and 200,000 people, the Mongolian cavalry were lured in Xiangyang where they were slaughtered by the Song defenders due to the fortress double layered wall design. When a Mongol contingent entered the entrance of the fortress, the Mongol forces would be slaughtered to the last man, Mongols lifted the siege of Xiangyang

Battle of Xiangyang
–
Illustration of a Hinged Counterweight Trebuchet Prepped for Transit from the Wujing Zongyao, late Ming (Wanli Period) edition
Battle of Xiangyang
–
Illustration of a Xuanfengwupao (旋風五砲) from the Wujing Zongyao
Battle of Xiangyang
–
Chuangzi Nu
Battle of Xiangyang
–
A city under Mongol siege. From the illuminated manuscript of Rashid al-Din 's Jami al-Tawarikh. Edinburgh University Library.

35.
Battle of Yamen
–
The naval Battle of Yamen took place on 19 March 1279 and is considered to be the last stand of the Song dynasty against the invading Mongol Yuan dynasty. Although outnumbered 10,1, the Yuan navy delivered a crushing tactical and strategic victory, today, the battle site is located at Yamen, in Xinhui County, Jiangmen City, Guangdong Province, China. In 1276, the Southern Song court, in their rush to flee the city of Linan to avoid Mongol invaders approaching Fuzhou. Hopes of resistance centered on two young princes, Gongs brothers, the older boy, Zhao Shi, who was nine years old, was declared emperor. In 1277, when Fuzhou fell to the Mongols, the dynasty fled to Quanzhou, where Zhang Shijie. However, the Muslim merchant Fu Shougeng refused their request, prompting Zhang to confiscate Fus properties, in fury, Fu slaughtered the imperial clan and many officials in Quanzhou and surrendered to the Yuan, strengthening the Mongols naval power. At this point of the war it was obvious the Song did not stand a chance when fighting the Yuan head-on, Zhang Shijie decided to build a vast fleet with what remained, to allow the Song court and soldiers to move from place to place until the situation improved. The Song court sailed to Guangdong from Quanzhou, however, Zhao Shis boat capsized in a storm on the way to Leizhou. Although he survived, he fell ill because of this ordeal, the imperial court later sought refuge in Lantau Islands Mui Wo, where Emperor Zhao Shi eventually died, he was succeeded by his younger sibling, Zhao Bing, who was seven. Zhang Shijie brought the new emperor to Yamen and prepared the defense against the Yuan there, in 1278 Wen Tianxiang, who had fought against the Yuan in Guangdong and Jiangxi, was captured by Wang Weiyi in Haifeng County, eliminating all the Song land forces nearby. In 1279 Zhang Hongfan of the Yuan attacked the Song navy in Yamen, li Heng, who previously had captured Guangzhou, reinforced Zhang Hongfan. Some within the Song forces suggested that the navy should first claim the mouth of the bay, Zhang Shijie turned down this suggestion in order to prevent his soldiers from fleeing the battle. He then ordered the burning of all palaces, houses and forts on land for the same reason, Zhang Shijie ordered about 1000 warships to be chained together, forming a long string within the bay, and placed Emperor Huaizongs boat in the center of his fleet. This was done to prevent individual Song ships from fleeing the battle, the Yuan forces steered fire ships into the Song formation, but the Song ships were prepared for such an attack, all Song ships had been painted with fire-resistant mud. The Yuan navy then blockaded the bay, while the Yuan army cut off Songs fresh water, the Song side, with many non-combatants, soon ran out of supplies. The Song soldiers were forced to eat dry foods and drink sea water, causing nausea, Zhang Hongfan even kidnapped Zhang Shijies nephew, asking Zhang Shijie to surrender on three occasions, to no avail. In the afternoon of 18 March Zhang Hongfan prepared for a massive assault, the employment of cannons was turned down because Hongfan felt that cannons could break the chains of the formation too effectively, making it easy for the Song ships to retreat. The next day Zhang Hongfan split his forces into four parts, one each of the Songs east, north

36.
Mongol invasions of Japan
–
The Mongol invasions of Japan, which took place in 1274 and 1281, were major military efforts undertaken by Kublai Khan to conquer the Japanese archipelago after the submission of Goryeo to vassaldom. Ultimately a failure, the attempts are of macro-historical importance because they set a limit on Mongol expansion. The Mongol invasions are considered a precursor to modern warfare. One of the most notable innovations during the war was the use of explosive. After a series of Mongol invasions of Korea between 1231 and 1281, Goryeo signed a treaty in favor of the Mongols and became a vassal state, Kublai was declared Khagan of the Mongol Empire in 1260 and established his capital at Khanbaliq in 1264. The Mongols also made attempts to subjugate the peoples of Sakhalin—the Ainu, Orok. In 1266, Kublai Khan dispatched emissaries to Japan with a saying, Cherished by the Mandate of Heaven. The sovereigns of small countries, sharing borders with other, have for a long time been concerned to communicate with each other. Especially since my ancestor governed at heavens command, innumerable countries from afar disputed our power, Goryeo rendered thanks for my ceasefire and for restoring their land and people when I ascended the throne. Our relation is feudatory like a father and son and we think you already know this. Japan was allied with Goryeo and sometimes with China since the founding of your country, however and we are afraid that the Kingdom is yet to know this. Hence we dispatched a mission with our letter particularly expressing our wishes, enter into friendly relations with each other from now on. We think all countries belong to one family, how are we in the right, unless we comprehend this. Nobody would wish to resort to arms, Kublai essentially demanded that Japan become a vassal and send tribute under a threat of conflict. A second set of emissaries were sent in 1268, returning empty-handed like the first, after discussing the letters with his inner circle, there was much debate, but the Shikken had his mind made up, he had the emissaries sent back with no answer. The Mongols continued to send demands, some through Korean emissaries and some through Mongol ambassadors on March 7,1269, September 17,1269, September 1271, however, each time, the bearers were not permitted to land in Kyushu. The Imperial Court suggested compromise, but really had little effect in the matter, after acknowledging its importance, the Imperial Court led great prayer services, and much government business was put off to deal with this crisis. The Khan was willing to go to war as early as 1268 after having been rebuffed twice, Kublai Khan founded the Yuan dynasty in 1271

37.
Mongol invasions of Vietnam
–
Although ultimately a failure for the Mongols, both the Trần dynasty and Champa decided to accept the nominal supremacy of the Yuan dynasty in order to avoid further conflicts. By the 1250s, the Mongol Empire controlled large amounts of Eurasia including much of Eastern Europe, Anatolia, North China, Mongolia, Manchuria, Central Asia, Tibet, möngke Khan planned to attack the Song dynasty in South China from three directions in 1259. Therefore, he ordered the prince Kublai to pacify the Dali Kingdom, after subjugating Dali, Kublai sent one column under Uriyangkhadai to the southeast. Uriyangkhadai sent envoys to demand the submission of Đại Việt, and this action led Uriyangkhadai and his son Aju to invade Đại Việt with 40,000 Mongols and 10,000 Yi people. The ancestors of the Trần clan originated from the province of Fujian and later migrated to Đại Việt under Trần Kinh 陳京, a Vietnamese woman and a Chinese man were the parents of Phạm Nhan. He fought against the Tran for the Yuan dynasty, dong Trieu was his mothers place. In 1258, a Mongol column under Uriyangkhadai, the son of Subutai, a battle was fought in which the Vietnamese used war elephants. Aju ordered his troops to fire arrows at the elephants feet, the animals turned in panic and caused disorder in the Đại Việt army, which was routed. The King of Đại Việt fled to an island. When they found their envoys in prison, one of whom died, in January 29,1258, Đại Việts Emperor Trần Thái Tông along with Prince Trần Hoảng counterattacked at Đông Bộ Đầu. The Mongols were surprised and defeated and they retreated completely from Đại Việt. According to historians, Hòe Nhai Pagoda in Ba Đình District, the following year, Uriyangkhadai returned to Đại Việt with an army of three thousand Mongols and ten thousand local troops from the conquered Kingdom of Dali, now the Yuan province of Yunnan. He led this army into Song China, and fought his way to the Yangtze River, the Vietnamese had submitted unwillingly, and were reluctant vassals. The Vietnamese emperor repeatedly ignored demands to attend the Yuan court, nevertheless, according to the history of the Yuan dynasty, the Trần court sent tribute every three years and received a darughachi. By 1266, however, a developed, as the Emperor Thánh Tông sought a loose tributary relationship. Trần Thánh Tông sent a letter requiring Kublai to take his darughachi back. Because of civil war in the Mongol Empire, and the Yuan conquest of Song China, instead, Kublai reminded him of the peace treaty signed by the Mongols and Đại Việt. As a result of the Mongol conquest of the Song Empire, by 1278–79, some former Song officials fled to Đại Việt and Champa, former vassals of Song China, during the final stage of Mongolian conquest of China

38.
First Mongol invasion of Burma
–
The first Mongol invasions of Burma were a series of military conflicts between Kublai Khans Yuan dynasty, division of the Mongol Empire, and the Pagan Empire that took place between 1277 and 1287. The invasions toppled the 250-year-old Pagan Empire, and the Mongol army seized Pagan territories in present-day Dehong, Yunnan, the invasions ushered in 250 years of political fragmentation in Burma and the rise of Tai-Shan states throughout mainland Southeast Asia. The Mongols first demanded tribute from Pagan in 1271–72, as part of their drive to encircle the Song dynasty of China, when King Narathihapate refused, Emperor Kublai Khan himself sent another mission in 1273, again demanding tribute. In 1275, the emperor ordered the Yunnan government to secure the borderlands in order to block a path for the Song. Pagan did contest but its army was back at the frontier by the Mongol Army in 1277–78. After a brief lull, Kublai Khan in 1281 turned his attention to Southeast Asia, demanding tribute from Pagan, when the Burmese king again refused, the emperor ordered an invasion of northern Burma. Two dry season campaigns later, the Mongols had occupied down to Tagaung and Hanlin, the Mongols organized northern Burma as the province of Zhengmian. Ceasefire negotiations began in 1285, and ended with Narathihapate finally agreeing to submit in June 1286, but the treaty never really took effect as Narathihapate was assassinated in July 1287, and no authority who could honor the treaty emerged. The Mongol command at Yunnan now deemed the imperial order to withdraw void and they may not have reached Pagan, and even if they did, after having suffered heavy casualties, they returned to Tagaung. The Pagan Empire disintegrated and anarchy ensued, the Mongols, who probably preferred the situation, did nothing to restore order in the next ten years. In March 1297, they accepted the submission of King Kyawswa of Pagan although he controlled little beyond the capital city of Pagan. But Kyawswa was overthrown nine months later, and the Mongols were forced to intervene, Marco Polo reported the first invasions in his travelogue, Il Milione. The Burmese referred to the invaders as the Taruk, today, King Narathihapate is unkindly remembered in Burmese history as Taruk-Pye Min. In the 13th century, the Pagan Empire, along with the Khmer Empire, was one of the two empires in mainland Southeast Asia. For much of its history, Pagans neighbor to the northeast was not China but the independent Dali Kingdom and its predecessor Nanzhao, both with Dali as their capital city. Dali-based kingdoms were a power in their own right, at times allying themselves with the Tibetan Empire to their west and at other times with Chinas Tang and Song dynasties. Indeed, Nanzhaos mounted armies ventured deep into what is today Burma and may have been behind the founding of the city of Pagan. Then as now, the borderlands mostly consist of forbidding terrains of high mountain ranges, the Mongol Empire first arrived at the doorstep of the Pagan Empire in 1252 by invading the Dali Kingdom in its attempt to outflank Song China

39.
Red Turban Rebellion
–
The Red Turban Rebellion was an uprising influenced by the White Lotus Society members that, between 1351 and 1368, targeted the ruling Yuan dynasty of China, eventually leading to its overthrow. Since the 1340s, the Mongol Yuan dynasty was experiencing problems, the Yellow River flooded constantly, and other natural disasters also occurred. At the same time, the Yuan dynasty required considerable military expenditure to maintain its vast empire, the Red Turban Army was originally started by the followers of White Lotus and Manichaeism and was founded by Guo Zixing to resist the Mongols. The name Red Turban was used because of their tradition of using red banners and these rebellions began on a sporadic basis, firstly on the coast of Zhejiang, when Fang Guozhen and his men assaulted a group of Yuan officials. After that, the White Lotus society led by Han Shantong in the north of the Yellow River became the centre of anti-Mongol sentiment, a few rebel groups crossed the Yalu River from their base in Liaoning to capture Pyongyang on the Korean Peninsula. This invasion was repelled by Goryeo, under generals Choe Yeong, in 1351, the society plotted an armed rebellion, but the plan was disclosed and Han Shantong was arrested and executed by the Yuan Government. After his death, Liu Futong, a prominent member of the White Lotus, assisted Hans son, Han Liner, to succeed his father, after that, several other Han rebels in the south of the Yangtze River revolted under the name of the Southern Red Turbans. Among the key leaders of the Southern Red Turbans were Xu Shouhui, the rebellion was also supported by the leadership of Peng Yingyu and Zou Pusheng. One of the more significant Red Turban leaders was Zhu Yuanzhang, at first, he followed Guo Zixing, and in fact later married Guos step-daughter. After Guos death, Zhu was seen as his successor and took over Guos army, between 1356 and 1367, Zhu began a series of campaigns seeking to defeat his opponents in the Red Turbans. At first, he nominally supported Han Liner to stabilize his northern frontier, then he defeated his rivals Chen Youliang, Zhang Shicheng and Fang Guozhen one by one. After rising to dominance, he drowned Han Liner, calling to overthrow the Mongols and restore the Han Chinese, Zhu gained popular support. In 1368, Zhu Yuanzhang proclaimed himself emperor in Yingtian, historically known as the Hongwu Emperor of the Ming dynasty, the next year, the Ming army captured Dadu, and the rule of Mongol Yuan dynasty was officially over. China was unified again under the Han Chinese. Historical records commonly portray the Red Turban Army as dealing with captive Yuan officials, battle of Lake Poyang Ispah Rebellion

40.
Battle of Lake Poyang
–
The naval battle of Lake Poyang took place 30 August –4 October 1363 and was one of the final battles fought in the fall of Chinas Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. There were at time a number of rebel groups who sought to topple the reigning dynasty. The relieving navy of the Ming, under Zhu Yuanzhang, met the Nanchang-besieging Han navy, commanded by Chen Youliang, in Jiangxi Province on Lake Poyang, the ensuing Ming victory here ensured Zhus ascending the throne as Hongwu Emperor when the Yuan Dynasty finally fell five years later. The battle of Lake Poyang began as a siege by the Han against the Ming-held town of Nanchang. The descriptions from the time seem to indicate the use of lóuchuán, which were essentially floating fortresses, very tall and strong, but also relatively slow, and requiring deep water to sail. Nanchang defended itself well against the siege, the tall walls neutralizing the chief strength of the tower ships. A Ming messenger managed to break through the Han fleets blockade, the majority of the Ming forces, in particular its ships, were occupied at the time in fighting Zhang Shichengs Wu Kingdom elsewhere, but Zhu nevertheless arrived with what force he could muster. These ships were, on average, smaller than the Han ships, which meant a disadvantage in size and strength, but also great advantages in speed, maneuverability, the summer sun had already caused the lakes water level to drop considerably, to the Mings advantage. They sailed for nine days from Zhus capital Nanjing to Nanchang, capturing the town of Hukuo along the way on 25 August. By the time the Ming fleet arrived, Chen Youliang, the Han commander, realised that Nanchang was not going to surrender soon, and so he redirected his focus on defeating the arriving Ming fleet. Knowing that his own fleet was suited more for siege than for combat, he hoped to finish the battle quickly. During the battle firearms were used, the Ming fleet divided itself into eleven squadrons, with the heavier ships at the centre, a number of their warriors disembarked to bolster the Nanchang garrison. Following the Ming arrival, both fleets dropped anchor for the night, the fighting commenced the following morning, on 30 August. Though they managed to set more than twenty Han ships alight, Zhu Yuanzhang rushed to extinguish the flames as the Han fleet concentrated all their attacks on his ship, the situation quickly grew worse for Zhu as the ship hit a sandbar and got stuck. The Han circled around and continued to attack with arrows and fire, however, the Ming fleet quickly came to the rescue of their commander, the waves created by their very movement shaking the flagship free. That night the Ming ships were sent downstream a short way for repairs, Zhus plan had failed, but the battle was not over yet. The main action of that day involved the creation and launching of ships by the Ming. Small rafts and fishing boats were loaded up with bales of straw and gunpowder, set aflame, dummies with armour and weapons were placed on the fireships as well, to aid in confusing and tricking the enemy

41.
Ispah rebellion
–
The Ispah rebellion was a series of civil wars occurring in the middle of 14th century in Fujian under the Yuan dynasty. The term Ispah might derive from the Persian word سپاه, meaning army or Sepoy, thus, the rebellion is also known as the Persian Sepoy rebellion in Chinese documents. Under Mongol rule, the number of Arab and Persian Muslims residing in the Chinese port city of Quanzhou was greatly boosted, in 1357, a predominantly Muslim army led by two Quanzhou Muslims, Sayf ad-Din and Amir ad-Din, revolted against the Yuan dynasty. In defiance of imperial forces, the army seized control of Quanzhou, Putian, in 1362, the Ispah army collapsed into internal conflict and was eventually crushed in 1366 by the Han Chinese commander Chen Youding, who was loyal to the Yuan dynasty. From the 13th century to the early 14th century in the Yuan dynasty, as the starting point of the Maritime Silk Road, Quanzhou was Chinas, possibly the worlds, largest port. It was also the largest city in Fujian, with a population exceeding that of Fuzhou, the Arabs called it Tigers claw, which has been used by merchants in Europe and elsewhere. At the time, Quanzhous population exceeded 2 million, with a wall as long as 30 miles, jinjiangs river and its harbor had 10,000 ships docked, with highly developed trade. Quanzhou exported luxuries such as silk, ceramics, copper, and iron, as well as satin, while imports include pearls, ivory, rhino horns, frankincense, the most important imports were spices and herbs. Quanzhou had many residents, such as Arabs, Persians, Europeans, Jews, Indians, Africans. There were around 100 different languages being used, the Quanzhou people labeled these foreigners as Fan. Due to the number of foreigners coming in, Quanzhou didnt want foreigners to stay. Quanzhou had massive foreigner neighborhoods, with foreigners and natives often intermarrying and giving birth to mixed children, although foreigners and natives had some cultural intermingling, the foreigners still practiced and spread their own religions, such as Islam, Christianity, Manichaeism, Hinduism, etc. These mixed living conditions made management much harder, there are multiple theories about the origin of the word Ispah. Some think that Ispah originated from the Persian word سپاه, which means militia, cavalry and it could also be the Persian equivalent of mercenaries or borrowed from the name of a city, Isfahan, given that most of the people came from that city. Others believe that Ispah is used for designating troops, instead of as an actual name, in the early Yuan dynasty, the Mongols gave the Islamic Sunni Semu Pu Shougeng family public support, since they helped rebel against the Song dynasty and establish the Yuan dynasty. As a result, this family became stronger and had influence over politics. The Sunni Muslims in Quanzhou became more dominant in Quanzhou and excluded the Shiites, in 1282, the Yuan dynasty stationed 3000 Shiite forces in Quanzhou, but even then there were still too few Shiites in Quanzhou. Near the end of the Yuan Dynasty, the government struggled to deal with various armed rebellions, the Quanzhou Shiite Persians organized the Ispah army to defend their ethnic group, which already had a large Persian population with growing strength

Ispah rebellion
–
The situation in Xinghua in 1362 during the Ispah Rebellion.

42.
Chinese emperors family tree (late)
–
This is a family tree of Chinese emperors from the Mongol conquest of 1279 to end of the Qing dynasty in 1912. Chinese emperors family tree → Chinese emperors family tree → Chinese emperors family tree → Chinese emperors family tree The following is the Yuan dynasty family tree, genghis Khan founded the Mongol Empire in 1206. The empire became split beginning with the war of his grandsons Kublai Khan. Kublai Khan, after defeating his younger brother Ariq Boke, founded the Yuan dynasty in China in 1271, the following is a simplified family tree for the Ming dynasty, which ruled China between 1368 and 1644. Those who became emperor are listed in bold, with their years of reign, in China, Ming emperors are best known by their temple names, which are given second below, after the personal name. The imperial familys original name was Zhu, but the Hongwu Emperor opted for the dynastic name Ming, meaning brilliant. These claimants are given with their era names, and the timespans of their reigns in brackets. Their purported periods of rule are given in brackets, in 1662, Koxinga regained control of Taiwan from the Dutch colonial regime, and established a state for those who wished restore the Ming dynasty to power. This state lasted until 1683, when it submitted to the Qing dynasty and those who became emperor of China are listed in bold, with their years of reign. The names given for emperors are era names, the form by which Qing emperors were most commonly known, puyi abdicated as head of state on February 12,1912, but was permitted to retain his imperial titles until 1924. The imperial familys original Manchu clan name was Aisin Gioro, - Qing dynasty emperors - 1st generation of Iron Cap Princes – – – - The dashed lines denotes the adoptions baike. baidu. com baike. baidu. com

43.
Imperial Preceptor
–
The Imperial Preceptor, or Dishi was a high title and powerful post created by Kublai Khan, founder of the Yuan dynasty. It was established as part of Mongol patronage of Tibetan Buddhism, the title was originally created as the State Preceptor or Guoshi in 1260, the first year of Kublai Khans enthronement. In that year he appointed the Sakya lama Drogön Chögyal Phagpa to this post, in 1264, He founded the Bureau of Buddhist and Tibetan Affairs and appointed Phagpa as the first director of this important new agency. The lama was offered nominal rule over all Tibet and also supervised Mongol relations with the Buddhist clergy, in 1270, Phagpa became Imperial Preceptor when the title was renamed. As Imperial Preceptor, he was authorized to issue letters and proclamations to the temples and institutions of Tibet, Kublai Khan dispatched the lama to Tibet in 1264 to help persuade his people to accept Mongol rule. A member of the Sakya sect, acting as Imperial Preceptor and residing in China, the Mongols also selected a Tibetan official titled dpon-chen to live in and administer Tibet. This pattern of religio-political relations prevailed for the remainder of the Yuan period, after the overthrow of the Mongol Yuan dynasty by the Chinese Ming dynasty, Yuan titles such as Imperial Preceptor were revoked, replaced with titles of lesser status. Tibet under Yuan rule Bureau of Buddhist and Tibetan Affairs Patron and priest relationship Sakya List of rulers of Tibet

44.
Zhongshu Sheng
–
As one of the three departments, it was the main policy-formulating agency that was responsible for proposing and drafting all imperial decrees. The Song dynasty modified that tripartite division of executive agencies in the central government, under the Song, as also under the Liao and Jin dynasties, those organs exercised much of the executive authority for the emperor. Models for it had long been part of Chinese imperial government, branch Secretariats were set up throughout the empire and were subordinated to the Central Secretariat. Branch Secretariats gradually became provincial-level administrative organizations or institutions known simply as the provinces, there were 11 regular provinces in the Yuan dynasty. It was eventually abolished after the last Chancellor Hu Weiyong was killed by Hongwu Emperor, the first emperor of the Ming, who later established the Grand Secretariat. The Central Secretariat was no set up again by later rulers of China. A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China, Grand Secretariat, the coordinating agency of the Ming dynasty after 1380

Zhongshu Sheng
–
The Central Region within the Yuan dynasty directly governed by the Central Secretariat.

45.
Administrative divisions of the Yuan dynasty
–
The Yuan dynasty was a vast empire founded by Mongol leader Kublai Khan in China. In addition, the Yuan emperors held nominal suzerainty over the western Mongol khanates, the most important part of the Yuan Empire was the Central Region, which covered the region of the Yuan capital Khanbaliq. The Central Region consisted of present-day Hebei, Shandong, Shanxi, the part of present-day Inner Mongolia. There were 11 regular provinces in Yuan dynasty, below the level of provinces, the largest political division was the circuit, followed by prefecture operating under a prefect and subprefecture under a subprefect. The lowest political division was the county overseen by a county magistrate and this government structure at the provincial level was later copied by the Ming and Qing dynasties. Gansu province with Zhangye District as its seat of government, under this came most of present-day Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, south-eastern Gansu Province, and part of north-eastern Amdo. The Kingdom of Qocho was part of the Yuan, Henan Jiangbei province with Kaifeng District as its seat of government. Under this came the Henan areas to the south of the Yellow River, north-east Hubei, Jiangsu, huguang province with Wuhan of the present-day Hubei Province as its seat of government. Under this came a part of south-east Hubei, Hunan, Guangxi, most of Guizhou, Jiangxi province with Nanchang as its seat of government. Under this came part of present-day Jiangxi and Guangdong Province, jiangzhe province with Hangzhou as its seat of government. Under this came Jiangsu and Anhui areas to the south of the Yangtze River, Zhejiang, Fujian, Liaoyang province with present-day Liaoyang District in Liaoning Province as its seat of government. Under this came north-east China, the part of Korea. Lingbei province with Karakorum as its seat of government, under this province came the present-day Mongolia, northern Inner Mongolia and parts of Siberia. Shaanxi province with Xian as its seat of government, under this came the majority of present-day Shaanxi Province, the south-western part of Inner Mongolia, south-eastern Gansu, north-western Sichuan, and a small part of Qinghai. Sichuan province with Chengdu at its seat of government, under this came most of present-day Sichuan Province and parts of south-western Shaanxi. Yunnan province with Kunming as its seat of government, under this came present-day Yunnan Province, parts of western Guizhou and north-eastern part of Burma. The Duan family of the Dali Kingdom reigned in Dali as Maharajahs while the Governors served in Kunming, zhengdong province with Kaesong of present-day Korea as its seat of government. Furthermore, it was set up to invade Japan

Administrative divisions of the Yuan dynasty
–
Administrative divisions of the Yuan dynasty.

46.
Yuan dynasty in Inner Asia
–
The Yuan dynasty in Inner Asia was the domination of the Yuan dynasty in Inner Asia in the 13th and the 14th centuries. Actual Yuan rule extended to Manchuria, Mongolia, the Tibetan Plateau, people from these Inner Asian regions other than the Mongols usually belonged to the Semu class. Manchuria was originally ruled by the Jurchen Jin dynasty before the emergence of the Mongol Empire in the early 13th century, during the Mongol conquest of the Jin dynasty, both North China and Manchuria became subjugated by the Mongols. After the establishment of the Yuan dynasty, Manchuria became a part of the Yuan, the Yuan founder Kublai Khan set up the Liaoyang province in 1269, and the province had extended to northeastern Korean Peninsula. It became a Xuanweisi in 1286, in 1287, the Liaoyang province was established again, and lasted until the end of the Yuan dynasty. Ming conquest of Manchuria only occurred after the Ming military campaign against Naghachu in 1387, the Mongols came from the Mongolian steppe, and Karakorum was the capital of the Mongol Empire until 1260. During the Toluid Civil War, Mongolia was controlled by Ariq Böke, after Kublais victory over Ariq Böke, Mongolia was put within the Central Region directly governed by the Central Secretariat at the capital Khanbaliq. Temur was later appointed a governor in Karakorum and Bayan became a minister, during the rule of Külüg Khan, the third Yuan emperor, Mongolia was put under the Karakorum province in 1307, although parts of Inner Mongolia were still governed by the Central Secretariat. It was renamed to the Lingbei province by his successor Ayurbarwada Buyantu Khan in 1312, after the overthrown of the Mongol Yuan dynasty by the Ming dynasty in 1368, the Mongols retreated to Mongolia homeland which became the ruling center of the Northern Yuan dynasty. After the Mongol conquest of Tibet in the 1240s, Tibet was incorporated into the Mongol Empire, besides modern-day Tibet Autonomous Region, it also governed a part of Sichuan, Qinghai and Kashmir. It was separate from the provinces of the Yuan dynasty such as those of former Song dynasty of China. One of the purposes was to select a dpon-chen, usually appointed by the lama. Tibetan Buddhism was favored as the de facto religion of the Yuan dynasty. Yuan control over the region ended with the Ming overthrow of the Yuan, the Mongol Empire began to rule modern-day Xinjiang during their conquest of the Qara Khitai. After the division of the Mongol Empire and the established of the Yuan dynasty by Kublai Khan, the Yuan had shortly put most of present-day Xinjiang under its control under the Bechbaliq province, but they were occupied by the Chagatai Khanate in 1286. After a long-time war between them, most of Xinjiang became under the control of the Chagatai Khanate, while the Yuan dynasty only controlled part of Xinjiang. After the fall of the Yuan dynasty in 1368, the Kara Del khanate was founded in Hami by the Yuan prince Gunashiri, the Mongol Empire had politically fragmented into four khanates, including the Yuan dynasty and the three western khanates since the Toluid Civil War in the 1260s. The subsequent Kaidu–Kublai war lasted a few decades and deepened the fragmentation, after the death of Kublai Khan in 1294, Ghazan Khan of the Ilkhanate converted to Islam after his enthronement in 1295

47.
Mongolia under Yuan rule
–
The Yuan dynasty ruled over the Mongolian steppe, including both Inner and Outer Mongolia as well as part of southern Siberia, for roughly a century between 1271 and 1368. The Mongols came from the Mongolian steppe, and Karakorum was the capital of the Mongol Empire until 1260, during the Toluid Civil War, Mongolia was controlled by Ariq Böke, a younger brother of Kublai Khan. There were many Mongolian princes concentrated in the Mongolian steppe, whose influence extended into the Yuan capital, in fact, in order to maintain his claim as the Great Khan, Kublai Khan made significant efforts to control and restore peace in Mongolia after the Toluid Civil War. In 1266, Nomukhan, one of Kublais favorite sons, was dispatched to Mongolia to guard the north, during the Kaidu–Kublai war which lasted a few decades, Kaidu, the de facto ruler of the Chagatai Khanate, tried to take control of Mongolia from Kublai Khan. In fact he shortly occupied large parts of Mongolia, although it was recovered by the Yuan commander Bayan of the Baarin. Temür was later appointed a governor in Karakorum and Bayan became a minister, after all, the Yuan court needed the allegiance of the Mongol aristocracy as a whole even when it was forced to strike against individual members. After the death of the Crown Prince Zhenjin in 1286, Kublai Khan decided to make Zhenjins son Temur his successor, after Kublai Khans death in 1294, Temür, who previously garrisoned in Mongolia, returned to the Yuan capital to become the next ruler of the empire. In 1307, when Temür Khan died, he returned eastward to Karakorum and he eventually succeeded to the throne with the support of his mother and younger brother, Ayurbarwada. It was renamed to the Lingbei Branch Secretariat or simply the Lingbei province by his successor Ayurbarwada in 1312, after the civil war Tugh Temür abdicated in favor of his older brother Kusala, who enthroned himself on February 27,1329 north of Karakorum. However, he died only four days after a banquet with Tugh Temür on his way to Khanbaliq. Then Tugh Temür was restored to the throne on September 8, after the capture of the Yuan capital by the Ming dynasty founded by Han Chinese in 1368, the last Yuan emperor Toghon Temür fled north to Shangdu, then to Yingchang and died there in 1370. The Mongols under his son and successor Biligtü Khan Ayushiridara retreated to the Mongolian steppe, the Mongolian homeland became the ruling center of the Northern Yuan dynasty, which would last until the 17th century. Toluid Civil War Mongolia under Qing rule Manchuria under Yuan rule Korea under Yuan rule Tibet under Yuan rule Yuan dynasty in Inner Asia History of Mongolia

Mongolia under Yuan rule
–
Mongolia within the Yuan dynasty under the Lingbei province